THIRTY of Fiji’s best emerging schoolgirl rugby players are set to receive scholarships under a landmark new pathway program that began yesterday in Nadi and will continue until Friday — marking a breakthrough moment for the development of women’s rugby in the country.
For years, one of the biggest challenges in the women’s game has been identifying talented young players and ensuring they do not disappear from the system before reaching the national stage.
Now, Fiji Rugby has taken a major step towards changing that.
Through the Na Soko competition and its talent identification and development pathway program, the best players from the North, South, East and West are being brought together, assessed and developed under one structured system.
By the end of the week, 30 of the best performers will be selected for scholarships and another 30 identified for further development.
Fiji Rugby Women’s academy coach Tavaita Rowati said the program represented an important step in finally establishing a clearer pathway from school’s rugby to the highest level.
The players are first identified through the Raluve competition in the under-16 and U18 grades before progressing to the second phase through Na Soko.
There, they undergo screening by Fiji Rugby’s strength and conditioning department and receive further coaching and development through the academy programmed.
“Today marks the beginning of selection as we go through the process of selecting 30 schoolgirls for scholarship and 30 for development,” Rowati said.
The program, supported by the Ministry of Education and Fiji Rugby, is designed to ensure Fiji’s best young female players are no longer left to develop without direction.
Rowati said the selected players would be monitored through the national high-performance and academy systems.
The goal is to build a steady pipeline of players capable of progressing into the Fiji women’s national sevens and 15s programs.
For women’s rugby in Fiji, the significance goes beyond the 30 scholarships.
It represents the achievement of a long-needed goal — the creation of a genuine, structured pathway for talented schoolgirls to move from schools’ rugby towards the national jersey.
With the country’s best young players now being identified, supported and monitored, the Na Soko competition could mark the beginning of an exciting new era for Fiji women’s rugby.
