beleaguered

Fiji football beleaguered

From A. F. TINSLEY in Suva Rugby Union football is not just a game in the Crown Colony of Fiji. It is an obsession; almost a religion. Out of the colony’s 450,000 people (of whom over half are Indians, and Indians are soccer devo tees), there is a potential of some 25,000 Fijian Rugby players, and there is a regis tered Fiji Rugby Union playing list of 8,000 members in scores of clubs.

Thousands turn out every week to atch and cheer Rugby games played the typically Fijian style—hard, st, often unorthodox in tactics, ith tremendous flinging about of e ball, fantastic handling and often draordinarily fine kicking.

The game has been a national iort for many years, but only since iji sent a Representative XV to r ales in 1964 (the playing of which tonished the people of a country here Union is also a sporting ligion) has Fiji’s name become ally internationally known.

Tours galore

Fiji has been invited to send a am to tour England in 1970 for e English Rugby Union’s centenary lebrations. Next year, also, Fiji ill play the NZ All Blacks in Suva, id there will be a visit to Fiji by ritain’s famous Barbarians. Also in )68 Tonga will send a representative am to Fiji.

For these reasons, and because by r the greater percentage of Fiji ugby players are steadfastly loyal Union, the recent news that Aus alian Rugby League clubs are to nd “spotters” to Fiji to gauge the )tential there for introducing League the colony, came as a decided cal shock.

The Fiji Rugby Union issued a rongly-worded condemnation, ex •essing its “gravest concern and smav” that Australian League Ticials were planning to introduce sague into the colony.

Rugby Union, it declared, had a ace in Fiji life out of all pro 3rtion to the numbers actually aying; its importance to the ilony’s image abroad was enormous.

Derek Robinson, a noted Fiji ugby Union official, commented: fhe entry of League into Fiji can ily be at the expense of Union—the

two cannot exist side by side. Fiji is too small for both codes”.

Mr. Robinson is right.

Fiji people cannot pay high prices to watch Rugby, because the majority of its followers are young people unable to afford them. Rugby League would have to charge high prices, or at least prices higher than already charged, to make the game pay and to pay those who played it professionally.

Further, there are no suitable grounds surplus to those already required by Union players for big matches, and these total perhaps only half-a-dozen at the most.

But of course there is more to this battle than that. Under Union international rules, players who associate with League in any way other than as spectators are barred from playing Union again. Fiji has already suffered by losing good men for ever.

Three or four years ago Fiji lost some of its finest Union players to Rochdale Hornets and other Northof-England League clubs, some of them as a direct result of an advertisement published in Suva by the Hornets’ manager, inviting Fiji players to come to Lancashire for attractive wages.

Several went, and conquered

both their clubs and the public by their sterling play, their exemplary sportsmanship and their decent behaviour wherever they went, Understandably, although Fiji was happy that its image was enhanced in Britain, it was not so happy at the efflux of several fine representa tive players.

One who went to England three years ago to the Hornets was Apisai Toga, a great man physically and a great forward on the field. In the North he did as much as anyone to enhance Fiji’s image as a sporting country. He was never known to be out of order on the field, regard less of how severely he was provoked, Now Apisai is to play for Sydney’s St. George Rugby League Club for more money, perhaps, than he ever earned in his life. He was one Fijian who left England because he could not get along with the weather or food.

In a nutshell, Fiji cannot afford any further weakening of its player potential by Rugby League, especially with international tours com ing up, Fiji does not want League in the colony, nor does it want League promoters to entice its best players away, and “spotters” may be assured it will fight bitterly to prevent tbi;m doing it!

Apisai Toga, Fiji's burly star Rugby footballer who is to play for a Sydney Rugby League team, crashes through in a game in England.