“The weather in Suva dictated much of our preparation in terms of unavailability of grounds due to continuous rain; we thank the Suva City Council for providing Albert Park for our preparation.”
Action between Suva and Naitasiri Under-20 during their of Skipper Cup 2024 match.
Photos: Suva Rugby
The Suva rugby team is treating its match against Ba as the final according to head coach Solo Nute.
The capital side is hosting their Skipper Cup quarterfinal match on Saturday.
“We’ll treat this game as a final and we hope to have a good match against Ba this weekend,” Nute said.
“The weather in Suva dictated much of our preparation in terms of unavailability of grounds due to continuous rain; we thank the Suva City Council for providing Albert Park for our preparation.”
Nute said they aim to retain the Skipper Cup trophy in Suva.
“We need to play 80 minutes of rugby, we have been running so hard during training to last the entire game,” he said.
“Ba has a good panel of coaches as most of them are involved in the sevens that is going in the western side.”
Nute said they would need to control their set pieces against their western opponents.
“We will work hard, and we ask our supporters for their presence and prayers,” he said.
“We will do the talking on the field and we hope to win the match on Saturday.”
Nute said their team’s strength lies in their big and strong forward pack.
“We will need to maintain the winning culture and work extra hard to win our quarter-final match this week,” he said.
“A few of our sevens boys have raised their hands to take part in the quarter-final with Fijian Drua development player Isoa Tuwai roped in as well.”
Nute said they have been trying to set up a session with the Fiji rugby referees to discuss the new laws with Suva players.
“We’ll try to lean and enforce the new laws in future games,” he said.
Three of Suva’s Under 20 players will miss out on the Skipper Cup quarter-finals as they are in the Junior Flying Fijians camp. “They were part of the set-up in our challenge in the Farebrother challenge, but we’ll slot in other players from our squad to fill in the gaps,” he said.
“We will play extra one hundred per cent to win the quarter-final match.”
Nute rates Siqila highly
“It’s a big achievement for Sakiusa Seqila to make his debut in the Madrid 7s tournament last week and it’s a big win for us as we since we nurture our players when they progress through the system,” he said.
“We have a good pool of players that can join the national sevens, Fijian Drua and Flying Fijians systems.”
Feedback: ioane.asioli@fijisun.com.fj
