Suva will be using the Vodafone Women’s Senior League as a development platform for their youth players.

Captain Unaisi Vatulili said yesterday they roping in more Under-18 players so they could get exposed to the sport early.

“We are trying to get as many girls as we can to join the team and most of them are high school students,” she said.

“The reason why we are trying to get the young girls into football is because we want them to learn the nature of the sport while they are still young. By doing that, they will learn how to play and know the rules of the game and improve as they continue.

“The response from the girls has been really good, we have a lot of interest and that is what we want.

“We have been doing well as a team also, this is only round two of the league and we drew our first game against Nasinu 2-2 so the girls are doing well.”

Vatulili said they do not want to only teach the girls how to play football but to prepare them for international events that are coming up.

“Having this league competition is good because it gives us a lot of game time and quality competition as well,” she said.

“This builds up the girls and I believe there is a women’s U18 World Cup qualifier happening later this year, so it would be good to have our girls selected for the main team.

“We want to prepare our girls for whatever comes their way. So far we are doing well and looking forward to the remainder of the competition.”

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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