Warpath, based on the players in the Drua side and how well they are going, how many of them do you believe are at Super Rugby level? I look how good Isa Naisarani has been going, and it's great to see Fiji producing bruising/technical forwards and not just wingers.
Rather than just the usual; 'lots of talent, no structure' answer, which I understand is a major issue, what is your current estimation of the local comp in Fiji currently? are the best players being found for overseas contracts? and does Fiji have the nucleus of a good fifteens side moving forward?
Thankyou for your insight ahead of time.
Last year we had atleast 8 players that could have cracked Super rugby level but bar one (Kali Tawake for the Waratahs), none we actually selected even though ARU allowed each australian super rugby team to pick one player from Drua each (rebels picked Lomani but never used him), some others good players were John Stewart, Apete Daveta, Peceli Nacebe, Mosese Voka, Samu Saqiwa and Apisalome Waqatabu, these players are good enough for super rugby (John Stewart played for Sunwolves in their inaugural year).. This year apart from Lomani, our flyhalf Veitokani is the other best player and I think the Rebels could use him since they currently do not have a 10 backup to To'omua
Local 15's has improved vastly, only issue we still probably have is lineouts, scrummaging has also improved, Fiji were once the 5th best scrummaging team in the south pacific (including nz, aus, samoa and tonga), but we are now the 3rd...the major issue for is over the years has been our players been taken to soon by greedy french clubs and then being lost to rugby, recent example ofcourse is player of the NRC last year , Peceli Nacebe, french Top14 club Bordeaux took him even though 3 australian teams wanted his signature and to make matters worse, they didn't play him in a SINGLE top 14 game last season, they just took him to prevent other clubs from taking him, they "dumped" him this year so that they can afford other players like eto nabuli, semi radradra and seta tamanivalu and now he plays for ProD2 side Brive, this guy could have been a star in super rugby or a star in aviva premiership but alas, our biggest threat is French clubs who don't really care about the players or grooming them (unless they can be capped by france)...
Since 2003, over 300 fijians have traveled to France including over 200+ straight from high schools and ONLY 3 have come on to represent Fiji internationally, the rest were either lost to ProD2 or lower division or to rugby..I nicknamed this trend the "Rugby Blackbirding" by France as they always take advantage of the fact that nearly all the fijian players are somewhat uneducated or close to illiterate so they make contracts they can't understand and they promise a lot of money and then take advantage of them. World Rugby refuses to do anything about this so we will keep losing good players to french clubs, we don't get many star talents and then to lose them in such ways is even more painful and this is why we prefer more of our boys playing in Australia or NZ or even end up representing those countries instead of being lost to all in france..
