The Fiji rugby team has been a major force in the 2022 world rugby tournament. It is a serious sport here in Fiji and is played on most of the islands. We were lucky enough to be able to attend a tournament in the Mamanucas!
They started at 0700 on a Thursday morning as they had to get through 32 teams playing 11-minute games. Each team does a prayer before each game. One team recently lost their chief, so before their game, the entire stadium had a moment of silence. (top photo).
While 2 teams are playing on the field, the other teams are warming up on the side lines.
The teams do this fabulous thing that I call “hike the player up” when the ball goes out of bounds. Each team raises one team member as high as they can go and those team members try to catch the ball that is thrown to them from offsides.
To restart the game, they scrum, where both teams of 7 huddle together in a circle and one guy tosses the ball in the center.
I will tell you that these players are real men! No falling down and pretending to be hurt (like in US basketball or soccer). They take a hit and pop back up! And I mean they really take a hit! We heard them pound the ground and saw the dirt shoot up. No pads or helmets!
Good or bad, I have no idea
A lot of “oops” moments where they just couldn’t hold on to the ball as they were pummeled to the ground.
But there were a lot of great moments and fast runners in this rugby tournament.
Most of the time, they held onto that funny football with all their might!
Almost every match had a score or more.
We were wondering what they used to mark the field and wouldn’t you know it, they use used motor oil!
The rugby players might have only played for 11 minutes, but they played harder than any other sport I’ve seen! And it is no surprise that they played so passionately as the first-place team won $3000FJ, 2nd place won $1000FJ and the teams that lost in the semi finals each were awarded $300FJ (the entry fee).
We made lots of friends on the side lines.
After the game, we headed to their artisan market that they opened specially for us. They had 6 rows of tables filled with local Fijian crafts.
RULES OF FIJIAN RUGY
- No shoulder pads or helmets
- The ball must be pitched backwards to your teammates. No forward passes
- A team can pitch the ball back and forth to each other as many times as they like
- There is no blocking to assist your runner
- Everyone runs with the ball and tackles equally.
- When you are tackled, you have 1 second to let go of the ball and purposely “fumble” the ball. Don’t touch it again until you are up from the pile and standing on your feet.
- When you tackle someone, you cannot touch the ball until you are on your feet. You cannot dive on a loose ball.
- Typically, there are 15 plays from each team, but in Fiji there are only 7 from each side.
- When your teammate pitches the ball to you as you are running down the field, and you drop it, that is a penalty (called “knock down”)
The events from this blog occurred in early October 2022. Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events. Wilson is back on Cast Away Island – did you read about it on our last blog?