With three rounds still to go in the Skipper Cup round-robin before the break for the Sullivan-Farebrother Trophy, the focus in Ba is moving across to the upcoming club rugby season.
The Ba Rugby Union held a club members meeting earlier this week to gauge views on preferred formats and dates.
“The club meeting was very productive,” BRU secretary Gaby Kautoga explained.
“The clubs are raring to go, so we’re bringing the start date forward to May 4 for the opening round.”
The Ba Club Competition in 2023 comprised 24 teams from across the province, but the officials believe there will be more this season.
“We have had a number of inquiries from new clubs wishing to join us, so we are hoping to end up with around 30 clubs in the men’s section. As for the women, we want to start with eight teams later in June, once the Ranadi Cup has been completed.”
Rugby followers in Fiji know that without a strong club rugby foundation, there’d be no worthwhile provincial rugby, and without the Skipper Cup, there would be no Fijian Drua.
Club rugby is the true heart of grassroots rugby in Fiji – it gives young men and women a positive outlet for their energy and keeps them focused on a good pathway in life.
“Last season was the first time for this BRU committee to be involved, so it took us a little while to get sorted, but once the club rugby was up and running everything else seemed to fall into place,” Kautoga said.
“We were very lenient then with registration fees and late payments because we just wanted to see the rugby being played. Now we have to be a bit stricter – in several areas.” Registration for clubs opens this coming week and closes on April 29.
“It’s $300 for the men’s, but we just need clubs to pay $75 at the start to get registered.
“We expect to have four pools of seven or eight teams. Last year’s eight cup quarter-final teams will be seeded, and the remaining teams will be drawn from a hat in front of club officials.
“There was a desire from some clubs to have two divisions – premier and first – but we decided to aim for that next year, so that all clubs know before this season starts where they need to finish to get into the premier division.”
The draft schedule has the knock-out stages happening in late July with the finals being played in mid-August.
“We do need to leave a three-week gap afterwards before embarking on the second Ba Tikina Championships,” the talatala said.
“Also, according to the new BRU constitution, all clubs must nominate at least one referee and one medic to start training this year. These are areas where we need much deeper development.”
Clubs in the Ba area wishing to register for the Ba Club Rugby Competition can contact the executives via barugbyunion23@gmail.com to get updates from the official Facebook page ‘2023 Ba Rugby Union’.
