‘Kadavu’s Brute Strength a Concern’
The Island Pharmacy Ba women’s rugby team will want to end their pool matches on a high note by beating Kadavu in their Roya Tea Ranadi Cup clash in Sigatoka today.
This was the gist of Ba women’s coach Saiasi Koroi’s interview with SUNsports yesterday.
“We have prepared well, I’m sure Kadavu has also prepared for us,” he said.
“We’ll try to give them a good game tomorrow (today). Our target this season is to try and win all our weekly games with the goal to qualify for the ANZ Marama Championship in 2025.”
Koroi said his side would have to match the Kadavu forwards’ brute strength.
“We will have to improve our lineout because the opposition (Kadavu) has a good coach,” he said. “We’ll give them a good game and we’ll try to give everything that we got in their area of strength.” Koroi said he was glad to see that their forwards have shown significant growth in their knowledge of the game especially in their set piece.
“We will try to set our breakdown properly and whatever Kadavu hits us with, we’ll hit back,” he said.
“We’ll be humble and try our best to win the Ranadi Cup and play in the Marama championship next year.”
Koroi said the late arrival of their players to training has been a challenge since most of them are high school students.
“We have players from Ba Sangam College, Ba Sanatan College and Xavier College.
“We had camped at a location near Nailaga during the flooding last month, so we didn’t have any disruption in our training.”
Koroi has urged the Ba rugby fans in Sigatoka to turn up in numbers and cheer on the team. “I often tell the players to show their dedication and utilise their talent to achieve great things in the sport of rugby,” he said. “Rugby will allow these young women to earn a living and support their families.”
Cakaudrove will host Ba at Subrail Park, Labasa, in their Royal Tea Ranadi quarterfinal clash next weekend.
Today’s match is at 1pm at Lawaqa Park (ground 2).