Eyes filled up with tears inside the Wesley City Mission Church at Butt St in Suva yesterday morning as eulogies delivered during the memorial service described the personal, professional and rugby life of former Fiji rugby skipper Mosese Taga.
The church was filled with family members, relatives, friends, former work colleagues and his rugby mates.
“Mosese Taga e dua na tamata dau vosa vakadodonu (Mosese Taga always talked straight),” former Fiji Rugby Union chief executive officer Radrodro Tabualevu said in his eulogy.
Tabualevu knew Taga since their Queen Victoria School days.
“We grew to be very, very close friends, even outside rugby. He is a leader. When he was a member of the board of the FRU, he invited me to join and when he saw that some things were not right, he would never hesitate to confront me.”
Former national captain Sale Sorovaki, now FRU operations manager, related the humourous side of the Nailaga, Ba-born Taga, who started his career as an outside centre in the Fiji secondary schools team to become a prop in the Fiji national side and captain of the Fiji team to the 1991 Rugby World Cup.
Sorovaki shared that one of the worst moments of Taga’s career was when he was part of the infamous 1995 rugby brawl between Suva players and Naitasiri at the then National Stadium, now the ANZ Stadium at Laucala Bay. Former Fiji 7s captain Alifereti Dere reminisced on his playing days with Taga in the Suva and Fiji team.
“He was a hard worker,” Dere said.
“He worked his way from being a backline player to a prop, a position he held until his retirement because he was always fighting to own one of the 15 jerseys in the team. This is how I came to know him well because he is one of those players who would never dodge. He would always run straight at you, no matter how big you were.”
Taga was born in 1964 in Ba to parents Navitalai Taga from Bua and Jokaveti Ravula from Raralevu in Tailevu.
He was educated at Lekutu District School in Bua, QVS and Bua College.
He made his debut for Fiji during the 1987 RWC and represented Fiji 48 times.
He retired in 1998.
