Oceania Rugby Council?
pp. 42-164 · Read in the full issue
Why Has Fiji 'Spiked' An
From DENIS FISK in Port Moresby
The Fiji Rugby Union may spike the organisation of an Oceania Rugby Council which would take in all the Rugby playing islands groups, and promote the game in each of them by tours and exchange of information.
Fiji Union secretary, D. J. Robin son has knocked on the head the idea that Fiji should host the council’s first meeting in May.
One of the events which went to wards bringing about such a council was the South Pacific Games. During the Port Moresby games the idea was thrashed out in principle, and a large degree of agreement on its for mation and duties was reached. The next Games, in Tahiti, were also a
spur, because it was quickly realised that the cost of transporting Rugby teams to French Polynesia “for the sake of one medal” was going to be prohibitive for all but the West Samoans perhaps.
So the idea has come about that there should be a Rugby carnival organised in some other more central territory, and that the South Pacific Games Council award the medals in the same way as they are awarded in the Winter Olympics, at a different venue and a different time to most events (logically, in Fiji where the following is so large). Gate takings would help cover cost.
Last year, in Port Moresby, it was agreed that there should be a meeting to form an Oceania Rugby Council.
Papua-New Guinea, Tonga, British Solomon Islands, Wallis and Futuna.
Western Samoa, and the Australian Rugby Union (which would be in volved in an advisory capacity only) all agreed to send delegates.
The Fijian representative Nat Uluiviti, was not on the executive, but was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea. Now a letter has arrived, addressed to the secretary of the in fant Oceania Council, Dennis Brad ney, in Port Moresby, from D. J.
Robinson in Fiji saying that the executive there is not interested.
He says the Fiji executive is “fully in support of interchange between the Rugby Unions in the South Pacific and . . . suitable tours. But we feel that there is little that a meeting of the council could do that could not be achieved by correspondence”.
Fiji won't co-operate
Now all other unions are intending, or have indicated they are intending, to send delegates to Fiji, which is not willing to co-operate.
One can only ask why Fiji—the top Rugby Union in the Pacific (challenged only by Tonga for supremacy)—should not want to see other territories helped to reach the same international standard.
The meeting in Fiji would cost the Fiji Union little—it would be the other unions who would have the travelling costs, particularly Papua- New Guinea, and they all want it.
Are executive noses out of joint in Fiji because it appeared that a
(Continued on p. 160)
decision to involve them in the council was taken without their prior knowledge? It can find no evidence that this is so, as all others who took part in the August discussion in Port Moresby were aware that Nat Uluitivi could only carry back a recommenda tion from the spontaneous meeting.
Little Wallis and Futuna, with only one club, is willing to travel to a council meeting in its enthusiasm to spread Rugby.
Will the (understood to be retiring shortly) honorary secretary of the Fiji Union be inspired to work up some enthusiasm, to help, for example, such infant bodies as Wallis and Futuna get a copy of the game’s laws, which, to the shame of major Rugby Union playing countries, it has never seen!
Meanwhile, plans are being made to hold the meeting at Apia instead of Suva. • A BBC radio commentator, Mr.
Malcolm Billings, was due to visit Fiji from March 12-14, collecting material for a World Service pro gramme on the economic and political life of the country. Mr. Billings, an Australian, provided the Radio Fiji coverage of the 1965 constitutional talks in London.