Sotutu gets call to join Northern Stars
Auckland: Promising midcourter, Teuila Sotutu has been added to the Northern Stars’ roster as a pre-season training partner for the upcoming ANZ Premiership season.
The 19-year-old replaces Tori Kolose, who has joined the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic’s fulltime squad as an injury replacement.
Sotutu has been in the Northern Comets system and was named in the New Zealand Under-21 squad ahead of this year’s Netball World Youth Cup. She is the sister of All Blacks and Blues loose forward Hoskins Sotutu, while her father Waisake played rugby for Fiji, the Blues and Crusaders. Stars coach Kiri Wills says she’s looking forward to seeing what Sotutu makes of the opportunity.
“She has got some serious pace and has already shown us she can be a handful to defend. She has lovely touches on the feed into the shooters,” Wills said. “By pre-season at taki she will have settled right into our squad and I am looking forward to Teuila and Greer Sinclair putting a stake in the ground and showing the NZU21 selectors what they are capable of.” A space opened up for Sotutu after the Magic’s Asher Grapes ruptured her ACL in December, which led to Kolose’s call up. Wills said Kolose deserved her shot at regular court time this season.
“All the training partners we have want to be contracted players, either as a replacement in teams if they aren’t picked straight up at contracting time,” she said.
“We are really pleased for Tori that she has got her opportunity with the Magic. She has worked incredibly hard over the off season attending every team session that we had.
We miss her, she’s such a great team person and a great addition to any team and we know she will make the most of this opportunity.”
- Stuff.
Feedback:
The Kontiki Finance Business House bowls competition got underway at the Bowling Club on Thursday night.
The weekly competition has roped in 28 new teams for the 2021 season and it’s boosted with a $5000 sponsorship from Kontiki Finance.
This was confirmed yesterday by the tournament organiser Martin Fong. “Business house bowls has drawn a lot of attention with the prizes being given away everyday of the 14 weeks of competition,” he said.
“We have the biggest number of participation this year and that is a good sign for the sport.
“The format of play consists of two sections of 14 teams which will make the competition very interesting for the participants.”
Fong added the organisers would try to introduce some new format to make the comp interesting.
“This is something different this year where the top four teams from each section will play each other for top honours,” he said
“The Suva Bowling Club is thankful to Kontiki Finance for promoting the sport.
“We hope that when the business house competition finishes we would have an increasing number of new bowlers taking part in our weekly events.
“The interesting factor here is that we will see some new players who might fall in love with the sport.
“We never know the competition might introduce some x-factor that can represent Fiji in bowling.”
“It’s amazing to see the response from the business houses in sending a team for the weekly competition.”
Naitasiri rugby second fiveeighth Maleli Sau has got big plans for this year’s Skipper Cup season.
Sau played for Nawaka Black during the 34th Fiji Bitter Nawaka 7s tournament at Prince Charles Park, Nadi yesterday.
The 26-year-old played an influential
role for his side as they beat Malomalo 14-12, going down narrowly 12-7 to Navutulevu before bouncing back to beat Tagimoucia Babas 17-10.
“I’ve always played for Nawaka sevens but last year I played for the Naitasiri team and right now I’m focusing on the Skipper Cup,” he said.
Journey
Sau, at the age of 17, while a Year 12 student at Queen Victoria School secured a rugby scholarship to New Zealand where he played for Mid Canterbury in 2017. Also joining him in the Nawaka Black was upcoming centre Kaliova Mocetadra.
“I was lucky enough to attend a private school where talented Maori rugby Sau said.
He returned home in 2018 and played with the Nawaka 7s team.
Break
the young players attended,”
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown last year, Koli Sewabu contacted Sau and gave him a try out for the Naitasiri team.
“Which I did and three weeks later we played against Tailevu. “That was my first break in the local provincial competition. I will be back for Naitasiri this season,” he said.
Naitasiri reached the
Cup grand final in 2020.
Skipper