A 30-ALL tie at full-time followed by confusion before extra time and then two sets of extra time and lastly, a golden point from a penalty kick was what the Namuaniwaqa Sea Eagles endured before they lifted the Vodafone Cup Premier Men’s trophy in Suva last Saturday.
The Sea Eagles ended the title defence of Vusu Raiders in the final with a 32-30 win after a match that had many twists and turns.
Tears were shed by the winning team as they were surrounded by women conducting a “vakamamaca” or the act of wrapping bales of cloth around a person or group and supporters came out onto the field to congratulate them.
Winning coach Mosese Kaitaci thanked God, his players and the team’s supporters for the hard-fought win.
He said this victory was not just theirs for the taking, but for the province of Ra as well.
The win on Saturday marked the end of a long journey that began at the Namuaniwaqa Primary School ground earlier this year.
Namuaniwaqa drew first blood with a converted try in the sixth minute of play and Vusu replied with an unconverted try in the 20th minute.
The game continued to be an intense contest and when full-time occurred, scores were tied at 30 points as it went into two five-minute sets of extra time.
Confusion arose before extra time began since Namuaniwaqa officials claimed they were ahead by two points due to a conversion they claimed had gone through.
A close evaluation by concerned parties of the conversion on the Fiji National Rugby League’s livestream of the match on social media platform Facebook showed otherwise.
With no score recorded, the golden point segment was enforced where the team making either a try or drop-goal would win the game.
Vusu kept their eyes on the Namuaniwaqa try-line and moved towards it with their set-pieces, however a blunder of theirs prompted the referee to award a penalty kick to the Ra side.
Meanwhile, in the FNRLW competition, Police Sharks won 34-28 over USP Raiders and in the Rising League under-18 competition final, Nadera Panthers won 22-8 over USP Raiders.
