Pasifika Sipoti in brief for 4 August
Photo:
© Photosport Ltd 2019 www.photosport.nz
Dolphins NRL head coach Kristian Woolf says he will continue as head coach of the Tonga national league team for this year's Pacific Championships.
Woolf said with the event held at the end of the NRL competition, that gives him time to work with the group for the October event.
The Tongans will compete against Samoa and New Zealand for the Pacific Cup, which Australia won last year.
Australia will miss the competition since they will be on tour of England at the same time.
The board of the Papua New Guinea NRL franchise met for the first time in Port Moresby on Thursday last week.
The
Post Courier
reported chairman Ray Dib and chief executive Andrew Hill stated the meeting marked a new era in the history of PNG rugby league.
The new board is tasked with ensuring the franchise meets all requirements before they debut at the 2028 NRL competition.
Dib said the work has already begun, with their focus on putting in place governance systems and structures that will help the franchise.
Papua New Guinea's Timothy Tuna will represent the country at the World Athletics Championship in Tokyo next month.
Tuna won the 200m gold at the Pacific Mini Games in Palau.
The National
newspaper reported he has been selected ahead of fellow PNG athlete Pais Wisil for the Tokyo event.
Athletics PNG president Tony Green said Tuna's higher world ranking gave him the edge over Wisil.
The 200m is schduled for 17 September, with the semi-finals on 18 September.
Former Tonga rugby coach Toutai Kefu is the new head coach of the Kamaishi Seawaves in Japan.
The club announced the appointment last week following Kefu's stint as head coach of the First Nations and Pasifika XV team that played the British and Irish Lions.
Kefu will lead the club's campaign from the next round of competition, which kicks off later this month.
The Seawaves play in division two of the Japan Rugby League One competition.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
3 hours ago
- Scoop
Samoa Clinch A Semi-final Place At The OFC U-16 Women's Championship With A Match To Spare
The win, Samoa's second in as many matches, cements a top four place for Juan Chang Urrea's side with one group match still to play. Attention now shifts to Thursday's fixture between Fiji and New Caledonia, which will decide the second semi-finalist from the group. Fiji holds the advantage, requiring only a draw to progress due to a superior goal difference, while New Caledonia must claim all three points to advance. From the opening whistle, Samoa controlled proceedings and dictated the tempo. Midfielders Brielle Tautua and Macy Tuiolosega orchestrated play with authority, stifling Fiji's efforts to gain any meaningful possession. The Fijian side was left chasing shadows for much of the match and struggled to mount any real attacking threat. Despite Samoa's dominance, it took a goalkeeping error to break the deadlock. In the 36th minute, a curling free kick from Tuiolosega on the left wing was misjudged by Fiji goalkeeper Melania Keresoni, who failed to make contact as the ball drifted into the corner of the net. Jayde Sagapolutele was a constant menace down the right flank, delivering a series of accurate crosses that deserved better finishes. Cali Willis and Tautua both missed clear-cut chances in the first half, and Aaliyah Johnson squandered a golden opportunity, heading wide in the second. Samoa finally doubled their lead in the 58th minute when Ayres Ava reacted quickest at the near post from a corner to slot home and the result was sealed in the 70th minute with a brilliant individual effort from Johnson, who more than made up for her earlier miss, drilling a who drilled a powerful shot past Keresoni from a tight angle. In the final minute, Tuiolosega unleashed a bullet from outside the box that will be an early contender for goal of the tournament, to round off a stunning performance to the delight of the vocal home support. The victory not only books Samoa's place in the semi-finals but also confirms the elimination of their next opponent, Tahiti, from contention.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
RunIt: From backyard collision game to a cultural lightning rod
Experts have called for RunIt to be banned. Photo: RNZ Pacific / RunIt / Supplied RunIt, originally a backyard variation of bull rush, involves two players sprinting and colliding, and it has evolved into a global phenomenon, albeit a controversial one. Experts have called for RunIt to be banned and a 19-year-old from Palmerston North died during a backyard RunIt-style event . RunIt safety spokesperson Billy Coffey told RNZ earlier this year that the two people who got concussion at an Auckland event used "illegal" techniques . "We had two concussions out of our eight runners, and those two concussions, the first one was from a guy who was an American-based and he led with his head, and the second one was the same concept." Competitors were required to wear mouthguards, he said, but headgear was optional. RUNIT Auckland. Trusts Stadium. Photo: Andrew Cornaga / Photosport "We've got an ambulance on site. We've got liability. Everything's covered. There's waivers, medicals beforehand, medicals after. There's an ambulance on site." Veteran sports commentator and former rugby league player Fauono Ken Laban told Pacific Waves he thought RunIt was a "dreadful event". "I think the so-called courage and toughness that they try to sell the event on, I think, is fake," he said. "Those kind of contacts and those kind of tackles in rugby union and and in rugby league were outlawed years ago. "I'm not even going to call it a sport, because it's not an established sport." But not everyone agrees. Auckland-based Pacific community leader Pakilau Manase Lua said he could see the attraction for Polynesian males in particular. "It's the attraction of being able to use their God-given natural abilities to be explosively impactful and physical in a sport. And I'll call it a sport - that lends itself to big guys that can run fast and are willing to put their bodies on the line," he said. "We can talk about the ethical stuff around possible injuries and all that sort of stuff. But there's an element of risk in any sport, even rugby league, we all know - they're all well governed. They're all structured and have policies, protocols, procedures, and all that sort of stuff around head injuries. "But the attraction is also the money." He said his personal view is "you can't ban it". He said he does not condone the backyard ones that don't have a lot of safety precautions. "But those that are well organised, that have medical staff in place and that people know the risks - I think if you ban it, you'll make it go underground. "These are things that a lot of young people should be educated about, the around particularly head injuries, because at the end of the day, you see the same collisions in the NFL, in the NRL and rugby union, across any sport, boxing. "And then you've got other sports, like the Nitro Circus, where they've got guys doing three double somersaults on motorbikes that you can instantly get killed, break your neck, crush your spine if it goes wrong. So there's element of risk in anything. "But I think it's about education, organisation and safety." Auckland-based Pacific community leader Pakilau Manase Lua says RunIt allows Pasifika men the opportunity "to use their God-given natural abilities to be explosively impactful and physical in a sport". Photo: Andrew Cornaga / Photosport Niu FM broadcaster and social media personality Regan Foai said he is supportive of the organisation running it. "We've been doing this for a long time - it just hasn't been put on the scale that it is now," he said. "Some of us just enjoy the competitiveness of who is the stronger person on the field, I guess, and it's entertaining for us to watch. "It's just, I guess, part of our nature especially when it comes to the rugby scene as well." Foai recently spoke with New Zealand RunIt heat winner Robbie Tuluatua on-air and asked about the safety debate. "I was like there's a lot of people in the media saying about safety and all that stuff. "He said, 'man, we got briefed well before we got put onto the field; everyone was checked prior, and there was paramedics there; everything was put into place'. "I think a lot of people just jumping in the gun and not just think that we're just running it straight in to each other, and that's it." Associate Professor Lefaoali'i Dr Dion Enari, an expert in sports management, now serves as the Associate Professor of Pacific Heritage at Unitec. He warned that banning the sport could lead to unintended consequences. "You only have to look at it similar to the laws that ban gang patches in public. Doing that hasn't removed gangs from society; in fact, it's actually made it harder for the public to identify who's in a gang and who's not. "So I do believe that it runs the risk of making RunIt Straight go underground, and it being done in even more unsafe circumstances, with no medical personnel there, no sanctions, no safety rules of engagement in place." He said anything can always be improved, but it's about having conversations with the different experts to get advice on safety measures and how it could be done more safely. He said for Pasifika born and raised in the 90s, it was a pastime a lot of them had done as kids. "Especially those of us who had limited resources, a lot of us would then go and make our own fun by playing this, by partaking in RunIt Straight. "It has a childhood nostalgia for a lot of Pacific people. And the physicality aspect of it is also what draws a lot of Pacific people to want to participate in it." New Zealand Management Academies south campus manager John Loau works closely with rangatahi and said they are always looking at clips online. "They're quite entertained with that, with the clashes and when the bodies collide, and the impact that that makes. "You just can't help it when some of the younger ones who are attending training at NZMA that when they look at the thing - well, what do you think, sir? "I said, 'Well, those are some tough bodies. Those are some tough hits. Do you understand the impact on that?' And we just try to walk them through the conversations of how that impacts them physically, and then some of the other injuries that could manifest themselves. And from a mental health standpoint as well." He said Pacific people are physical athletes - built for travelling across the oceans, climbing trees without any aid, or even digging in warfare. "It's really built in our DNA and as our evolution as a people." He also said it's compared with bull rush and able to be organised in a backyard. "Because of that low entry point, it makes it unfortunately accessible to many people to try to take that on. I guess everyone thinks it's a bit harmless until someone actually gets injured. And that's one of the reasons why it's not just prevalent in our communities, but just throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, that people are very entertained by it, because they can participate in this activity, because there is a very low entry point. "So is it an acceptable sport? If people think it is, I challenge those who support it to show us how one trains for this particular sport. "I haven't seen much of that which is one of the biggest criticisms we see with established sports like the UFC, like in the NRL, like in the rugby union space and others."
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
Penrith Panthers coach forced to apologise for team trainer
Penrith Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has been forced to apologise for the actions of a team trainer. Corey Bocking has been labelled a disgrace for disrupting a Titans conversion attempt, costing them a potential victory. Sports reporter Jonty Dine spoke to Lisa Owen. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
