Mud is in the air, everywhere I look around. (With apologies to John Paul Young.)
Yes, it’s May next week but the wet season remains firmly at home in the West as the green rugby paddocks turn brown and paddling pools quickly appear in the dips when the rain comes pouring down.
Despite all this inclement weather, the Ba Junior Rugby Championships have attracted more than 40 teams, including the three senior Women’s teams.
“The response has been quite amazing,” BRU Secretary Gaby Kautoga beamed. “We have new teams trying to enter every day, and it’s sad that we have to turn some of them away – but we’ve been planning this since last November’s SGM so clubs have had ample time to get ready.”
The junior tournament is only five weeks long, so it’s not really worth teams joining after Round 2.
“Last year, the weather was much drier and we kicked off our club rugby in mid-March,” Kautoga said. “But the storms over the last six to eight weeks have been very restrictive.”
That said, the Vinod Patel Park turf stayed good for the opening round of junior games last Saturday.
The other issue restricting the games is the lack of playing fields. Vinod Patel Park has four rugby pitches but two are currently overgrown with grass more than one metre tall.
“We hope Ba Town Council will prepare those two grounds in time for Round 3 next week.”
Interestingly, the most popular age grade is the Boys Under 14, with 12 teams playing in three pools of four.
Then the Under 20s have 10 sides already in action.
Kautoga says that BRU is investing in youth “for rugby’s sake, and for the community’s sake.”
“Firstly, this tournament is about the people of Ba – families and friends having fun, expending their youthful energy in a positive way.”
“The secondary benefit is that the championships create pathways for aspiring players in each grade.”
Ba will select the best players in each grade to form U14, U16 and U18 representative teams in the hope that other unions will follow.
“So, when we play in the Skipper and Marama later in the year, we offer all other unions these options for friendly games,” Kautoga explained.
“It is Ba’s view that the Skipper and Marama should have U18 categories. But as that’s unlikely to happen this year, maybe we can start with a few friendlies.”
