Fiji's new Challenge - the Bole

Against their test against Scotland earlier this month, The Flying Fijians unveiled a new challenge called the 'i-Bole'. The Bole replaces the Cibi which, according to the creator of the new challenge, Manoa Rasigatale, was being used out o context as it celebrated a victory from a challenge that had not yet been issued - or accepted.

A detailed outline of the 'i bole' can be found here

Here is a video of the i bole - what do you think?

International Competition is the key to driving development

Whilst the IRB invests heavily in High Performance Programs throughout the Pacific, it is the investment in international competition that is the most important spend.

Fiji take on Tonga in the IRB Pacific Nations Cup (photo: zoomfiji.com)

Samoa v New Zealand in the recently completed IRB Junior World Cup (photo: irb.com)

 
Over the past four years, the last Rugby World Cup Cycle, the IRB has invested over GBP9million into high performance initiatives in the Pacific Islands. This funding is directed towards High Performance staffing structures, full time scholarship programs for locally-based athletes, coaches and match officials; Sports Science and Sports Medicine programs and infrastructure for world-class training facilities. All of these High Performance Programs are designed for one thing - to improve the quality of international Rugby and in particular, Rugby World Cup.

And in that regard, arguably the most important component of any High Performance strategy is competition. It is crucial that any high performance investment is underpinned by regular, high level competition.

In June this year, the first Tours of the revised international Tours Program commenced globally. Well-publicised Tours by Wales to Australia, Ireland to New Zealand, England to South Africa and France to Argentina have heralded a new approach to the June Test Window. Of greater importance, however (insofar as the IRB Strategic Investment initiative is concerned) was Scotland's Tour to Fiji & Samoa and Italy's Tour of USA & Canada.

The IRB Media Release on the Scotland Tour can be read here.

(Funnily enough, the same media organisations that habitually put the boot into the IRB each Rugby World Cup for 'not caring' about the smaller Rugby playing nations gave scant, if any coverage, of these tours in the June test window.)

And in November, the Pacific Island Unions will head up to Europe for Test matches against the northern hemipshere powerhouses during the November International Test Window. Each PI team will play three international tests and each will play at least one test against a Tier 1 Nation. Whilst the new international Tours program is not perfect, it is a vast improvement and it does underpin the IRB's commitment to International competition.

A look at the last weekend gives a good insight into just how much international competition is being provided for the Pacific Island Unions. In addition to the Samoa test against Scotland, Tonga played Fiji in the last weekend of the IRB Pacific Nations Cup; Samoa took on Scotland in the 9th place playoff of the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy and Fiji finished their 5 match JWC campaign with a win over Italy (a win which avoided relegation to the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy). Tonga started their IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy campaign with a loss to USA before recording a big win against Russia.

Whilst the June and November Test windows, together with the Pacific Nations Cup are providing an increased number of Test matches for the Pacific Island Unions, the IRB Pacific Rugby Cup is also playing an important role for the locally-based National team players (those that do not play professionally overseas) as well as those locally-based players that aspire to gain Test selection. The revised PRC provides 8 matches for the 'A' teams of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga - 6 of which are against the development teams of Super Rugby franchises in Australia and New Zealand. It is an excellent competition that exposes the best locally based players to matches against high quality teams as well as the rigours of week-in, week-out competition and international touring.

When you take into account the 'A' team matches that are being provided through the PRC, as well as the Tests provided through the PNC and the June and November Test windows, we are approaching 17 International Matches each year for the Test and 'A' teams of the Pacific Island Unions. The aim is to get this number to around 22 by RWC2015 and a lot of work is going into achieving this. If we can achieve 22 international matches each calendar year for the Test and A teams then we have significantly increased the level of international competition for the Pacific Island Unions in a very short time. That would be 66 International matches between now and RWC2015 which gives plenty of opportunities for the PI Unions to hone their RWC systems and structures.