Junior gets his just deserts
If Tomasi Cama played out of Auckland, he would have had a knighthood by now.
Ever since the little rugby maestro Junior Tomasi Cama arrived in Palmerston North in 1999, Manawatu has been home. Life has prospered for him since those days to where he is now arguably the best sevens player on the planet. He is New Zealand’s cog and Gordon Tietjens must be wondering who he will replace him with when he goes.
In the past couple of years, Junior, as everyone in Manawatu knows him, has said he wanted to go play overseas.
But no doubt at Tietjens’ behest, he stays. Even at the age of 31, he hasn’t lost his magic, as he showed at Wellington last weekend.
Typically Fijian, he is happy and shy with it, as happy to sidestep interviews just as he sidesteps flailing opponents.
Last year when he brought up his 50th for Manawatu (after 10 seasons), it just had to be done. At the appointed time, team manager Dave Spence spotted him slinking away down an alley direct to the training field and intercepted the wee guy for us just in time.
He has an out-clause in his oneyear contract with Manawatu, but it appears unlikely he will take it up to head overseas.
The New Zealand Rugby Union is signing these sevens guys for two to three years and are expected to make an offer to their sevens mastermind which will make sure he stays put.
He has always had that on-field brilliance but it took Manawatu a long time to recognise it. He was so ignored by representative selectors that the family he lived with often rang us, warning he was leaving the province if he wasn’t picked soon.
He began as a tiny Fijian playing for Te Kawau before switching to College Old Boys and in those early days there was no inkling he would go on to be a world superstar.
Not until Dave Rennie arrived in 2006 did he become a permanent Manawatu player. Rennie had often seen him taking apart his Iranz teams at Massey and decided he needed Junior’s versatility with the Turbos.
Maybe he will endure through to the first sevens at the Olympics. When the Rio de Janeiro Games come around, he will be a sprightly 35-yearold.
If there is anything likely to have you nodding off it is live Plunket Shield cricket commentaries on radio.
The Kiwi monotone and greats wads of silence don’t do it for me in 2012, not for the ball-by-ball commentaries I have stumbled on lately. Who cares that Fred Flintstone had to come in from third man to field the ball when there was no run?
When the Aussies commentate, the cricket gets in the way of the repartee and they have clever jokesters at work to keep listeners entertained.
But each time radio here threatens to cut back the live commentaries, the six listeners around the country kick up a stink. It is the Coronation Street syndrome.
If people are so freaking concerned, why don’t they ever turn up in person to watch? In all cases the seagulls outnumber humans by 20 to one.
Now NZ Cricket and Radio Sport have announced that the remaining six rounds of the Plunket Shield will be covered via an internet live stream in addition to the regular radio updates. That’s the way to go.
Further to me accidentally stomping on a little girl’s biscuit when covering the cycling, other instances have been mentioned.
In one, a little son of a friend had just taken his first nibble of a hotdog when a german shepherd dog arrived and chomp, the hotdog was wolfed down.
Another little boy was put up a tree by a pint-sized chihuahua and to this day is embarrassed about it.
He should have been in Australia, where a friend reported how he saw a pelican swoop in and pick up a chihuahua and flew away with the wee critter. Fair dinkum!