Queen Victoria School’s under-16 team finally settled an old score with Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School when it edged the defending finalists in a tense Fiji Secondary Schools Rugby Vodafone Super Deans Championship semi-final at Burchurst Park in Suva last Saturday.
For QVS, the victory was about far more than securing a place in the final, it was redemption.
The Vulinitu side had twice fallen to MGM in the knockout stages in recent years, first when the two sides met in the U14 grade and again last year in the U15 competition.
Technical coach Anare Sovanivalu said those defeats had remained part of the team’s journey and made Saturday’s breakthrough particularly significant.
“It was God that was with us in that match,” Sovanivalu said.
“We were coming in as underdogs because MGM were the finalists for last year.”
Sovanivalu said the players were well aware of the history between the two schools and the importance of finally overcoming their northern-zone rivals.
“When they were under-14, we lost to MGM in the quarter-finals. Last year, 2025, we again lost to MGM in the semi-finals,” he said.
“We were actually developing our boys and we’ve seen how it has grown. They have performed to what was expected.”
The victory has now taken the QVS U16 side one step further than last year and into the Super Deans final, where another formidable challenge awaits against Suva Grammar School.
Sovanivalu said QVS would again embrace the underdog tag.
“Suva Grammar is one of the finalists from last year. We are proud to come in as underdogs. We’ll give our all,” he said.
The coach believes the team has already achieved its primary development target this season, but winning the final would provide an even greater reward.
“Our target was to reach the final. Winning it will be a bonus but we will give it our absolute best,” he said.
The road to the final has also carried the weight of the wider QVS community, particularly after the school’s U18 side bowed out earlier in the competition.
Sovanivalu said the U16 players understood that they were now carrying the school’s hopes.
