BY ROMULUS HUTA

THE president of Autonomous Region of Bougainville Rugby Football Union (ARBRFU) has described their participation in the recent South Pacific Oil (SPO) Solomon 7s competition in Honiara last week as ‘playing for unity’.

Peter Tsiamalili Jr, who led the Bougainville Black Orchids side to a second place finish in the cup play-off said, it has been a wonderful journey for them to come over to Honiara and play against their Melanesian brothers.

“For us it has been a wonderful journey, not just a journey of rugby but a journey that Bougainville Orchids happened to unite every people together in the relationship we’ve had with Solomon Islands through the code of rugby,” he said.

The Black Orchids began their Solomon 7s campaign in a loss against homeside Henderson Hammerheads in the opening day but managed to pull through into the cup final after winning their remaining matches.

Tsiamalili Jr was full of praise for his boys despite the loss in the grandfinal against the Vanuatu Barbarians where they claimed the second prize of $20,000 cash.

“It’s been a bonus for us this weekend where God had allowed us to go all the way to play in the cup final.

“For this opportunity, we give all the glory and praise back to him that he has allowed us to come this far.

“Again, for us to come and finish in second has been a wonderful, wonderful outcome against this particular team Vanuatu Barbarians, that is obviously made up of good Fijian players, experienced Fijian players.

“The difference between us is, we are purely straight out of the village. We’ve been working on our rugby and we really appreciate the benchmark of what they’ve set as we look forward to 2019 when we come back to Honiara to take this opportunity again.

“Definitely, it is our first time to participate in a competition outside of our region after 15 years of developing rugby in Bougainville.

“Actually, this is a first unique journey outside our region for us. We look forward to many more in better future,” Tsiamalili Jr, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the PNG Sports Foundation, said.

The Solomon 7s is the first ever international rugby sevens competition to be organised in the country by Solomon Islands Rugby Union Federation (SIRUF).

The Solomon 7s is the first ever international rugby sevens competition to be organised in the country by Solomon Islands Rugby Union Federation (SIRUF).

The Black Orchids’ participation was upon invitation from SIRUF President Frank Wickham.

Tsiamalili expressed his gratitude to SIRUF for the invitation stating that it’s a significant milestone for the Autonomous Region of Bougainville Rugby Football Union.

“All praise and glory goes back to God for allowing these games to be played amongst our brother regions where we are able to express ourselves through the rugby field.

“I would like to thank the rugby community in Honiara for being a wonderful host where the safety of all our players in and off the pitch are well looked after.

“Big credit goes to the organisers as well for putting up spectacular job in preparing this successful tournament,” Tsiamalili said.

Asked him what’s next, he asserts that this is the beginning of their long walk ahead.

“It is our aspiration that we will be ready as a rugby union playing nation when the time comes,” Tsiamalili Jr said.

“If Cook Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa can do it so can we. This National Championship in Honiara adds to our resume for our bid to be recognised under World Rugby as an associate member of Oceania rugby union, with the plan to becoming full members.

“A full membership will be our objective into the future, we want to play in the Olympics and if a small nation like Fiji can be Olympic Champions in Sevens then have hope.”

By Taromane Martin

PREPARATIONS for October’s Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in Argentina are ongoing for the Solomon Islands Under-17 junior Kurukuru futsal team.

Head Coach Stanley Puirana said the squad has already resumed their trainings and are training three days a week after last month’s one-week training camp in Australia.

Coach Puirana said last month’s one week training camp in Sydney has been very helpful with the final selection of for the squad and also helping the players adapt to playing on a standard sized futsal court.

Puirana says he expects to name the final squad for the Junior Kurukuru U-17 futsal team later this month.

The Junior Kurkurus are training on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the Multipurpose Hall from 3pm to 5pm.

Meanwhile the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in Argentina will kick off from October 7-18.

The 2018 season of HRUA league kick off tomorrow

BY ROMULUS HUTA

THE much-anticipated 2018 season of the Honiara Rugby Union Association (HRUA) league will finally kick off this weekend at the Town Ground Rugby Stadium.

This follows the draws which took place at the Solomon Islands Rugby Union Federation (SIRUF) conference room yesterday.

The draws were held during a HRUA executive meeting attended by representatives of participating clubs.

HRUA is the legal governing rugby body in Honiara and has a total of eight affiliates namely Avaiki, Matangiki, Luapel, Diesel Services, Realas, Henderson HammerHeads, Islanders and TIA Warriors.

The eight affiliates are also ones contesting the 2018 season.

Three matches have been lined up for this weekend.

Two matches will be played on Saturday while one match is set for Sunday.

Kicking off the league round Saturday 2pm is Islanders taking on TIA Warriors and followed by Avaiki versus Diesel at 4pm.

The third match is on Sunday 4pm between Henderson Hammerheads and Matangiki.

The 2018 season is one of the main priorities since the election of Derek Pongi as HRUA president in June.

Pongi, who wishes to serve as HRUA President until the remainder of this current term lapses toward the end of the year, stated straight after his election that the HRUA league competition must uphold consistency to meet the growing demands of rugby in Honiara.

“For most part of this upcoming remaining months, HRUA executive is expected to carry out competitions for affiliated clubs which is going to be interesting and exciting, and I hope this will get rugby fans in Honiara get what they have been expecting since the beginning of this year,” Pongi highlighted earlier.

The league was initially agreed to kick off earlier last month. But to the rescheduling of the Solomon 7s competition for end of last week, HRUA had to reschedule their league’s kick off date as well, which will finally commence this weekend.

Meanwhile, Avaiki is the defending champion from last year’s competition, making it twice in a row after the 2016 edition.

Archery Solomon Islands focuses on development and future international events

BY ROMULUS HUTA

A program aimed at identifying new archers for the country will get underway in Honiara this month.

The program is organised by the Archery Solomon Islands (ASI) and will be held at the Town Ground Rugby Stadium on Saturday 11th August commencing at 1pm.

The program includes a whole afternoon of training and invites current archers and newly interested potential archers to attend.

The session will be conducted by certified individuals who are part of the coaching team from the archery federation.

“This will give the coaches time to prepare “Come & Try” Instruction Booklets and Checklists for new archers, and to repair and replace training equipment. Targets need to be maintained and another target stand and butt needs to be constructed before then,” a statement from the federation said.

The federation is also looking for interested sponsors to come forward and support them.

“Support from interested sponsors for development of archery in the Solomon Islands is encouraged.”

The training program is part of the federation’s plans to promote the code further to Solomon Islanders.

On this note, they have big plans ahead where they are putting a more spirited focus in encouraging more youths to come into the sport and help sustain its development aspects into the future.

“There are very few youth an archer participating in the sport and it is one sport where individual athletes can do very well with dedicated training and good coaching.

“Youth athletes can begin learning at around 12 years old and can compete in regional games at the age around the age of 13,” the national governing archery body said.

During the training, participants will be separated according to various classes defined by their ages.

The classes are: Cubs (13 years and under), Intermediate (15 years and under), Cadets (17 years and under), junior (20 years and under), Open, Masters (for 50 to 60 year olds) and Veteran (60 years and above).

The focus during the training session will be:

• Recurve Double 720 round – 70 meters (2 x 320; 72 arrows) (Men and Women)
• Recurve – 70 meters ranking round (Men and Women)
• Match Play Recurve (Men and Women)
• Mixed Team Recurve
• Target Round: World Archery Double 720 at 70 meters (144 arrows)
• Match Play Rounds – Individual competition

Being an inclusive sport, the archery federation is also giving priority opportunity to interested para-athletes.

“The inclusion of para-archers will also be a priority.

“Archery is one sport where para-athletes can be very competitive.

“There are several classes of disability and those who consider themselves as living with a disability, or families of these people, should contact the Solomon Islands Archery Association to find out how they can participate.

“The recently qualified coaches receive special support from World Archery to encourage disabled peoples to participate in archery.”

The federation added anyone interested to join them for the above training on August 11 are required to contact Archery Development Officer Andrew Lano on 7508761 or email: [email protected] for registration.

The archery federation is doing all these to ensure they have a big pool of archers to select from for the national team for upcoming various tournaments such as the Pacific Games 2019, Oceania Para OChampionship 2019 – Townsville, Arafura Games – Darwin 2019 and Oceania Archery Championships 2020 – Fiji.

By Taromane Martin

THE 2018 Samlinsan High School hockey league has resumed matches on Tuesday at the King George sixth hockey field.

Solomon Islands Hockey Federation (SIHF) Development Officer Mr Allen Temoa confirmed yesterday saying matches will continue today.

Results for matches on Tuesday saw Vura CHS picking up easy points over St Nicholas College while Flornce Young CHS defeated Koloale 4-0.

Results from yesterday’s game saw Woodford International School defeating King George Sixth 2-1 while Don Bosco drew 2-2 with Honiara High School.

Matches for today will see King George VI taking on Honiara High followed by Burns Creek CHS taking on Don Bosco while Koloale takes on St Nicholas in the girl’s competition.

Finals play offs for the high schools hockey league according to Mr Temoa will take place after the national hockey teams return from world hockey series in Vanuatu.

The World Series qualifiers will be hosted by the Vanuatu Hockey Federation (VHF) in Port Vila at Wan Smol Bag Sports Field on the 15th to 18th of August.

Wini jets off on Monday to prepare for the upcoming World Championship

BY ROMULUS HUTA

NATIONAL female weightlifting icon’s journey to the World Weightlifting Championship happening toward the end of the year begins next week when she leaves the country for abroad.

Jenly Wini has been confirmed to leave on Monday to resume training at the Oceania Weightlifting Institute in New Caledonia run by experienced coach Paul Coffa.

Her timely travel to the Noumea-based performance-enhancing institute is to prepare her for the World Weightlifting Championship and the Pacific Cup.

The Pacific Cup will be held in Noumea on December.

The World Weightlifting Championship will be held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and will run from November 1 to 10.

The world championship will bring together all best lifters around the world to compete over the 10-day competing period.

Ashgabat is no strange place for Wini having competed and represented the country there at the Asian Indoor Games last year.

Being a bronze medallist at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast held in April, Wini is expected to take on familiar faces in the world championship.

“I think this is very timely where I will get to have a good preparation over three month before travelling to take on the world’s bests,” she told SunSPORTS on Wednesday.

Wini competes in the 58kg class and has a personal best of a total196kg lifts.

During the Oceania Championship held in Noumea in June, Wini won gold medal after successfully lifting 82kg in snatch and 110 kg in clean and jerk, making it a total of 192kg but four kilograms short of her personal best.

After the world championship and the Pacific Cup tournaments are over, she will switch focus to the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa where the 34-year-old is expected to defend the title she won during the 2015 edition in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

Wini told SunSPORTS that she plans to retire from competing after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan.