[Source: Nauru Rugby]

Former Lelean Memorial School Deans captain Dagan Kaierua has returned to Fiji in a very different role, this time as vice president of the Nauru Rugby Union, and says the Nadi Junior Rugby Festival has delivered exactly what his young players have been missing back home.

Kaierua, who captained Lelean’s Deans U19 side in 2003, said Nauru’s junior teams rarely get access to proper contact rugby due to limited facilities, making the Fiji tour a crucial developmental milestone.

“Back at home we do not have a ground field and our development has been in terms of slow progress because we couldn’t do mostly contact sports with the rugby. So as you can see we brought under 10to 16, most of those are the age groups that we’ve been missing in doing actual contact sport with rugby. To have this festival here, it’s areal eye opener and good learnings for our kids.”

He stressed that the festival not only offers rugby exposure but reinforces values Nauru Rugby wants to embed in its young athletes.

“The opportunities with rugby is the rugby values that we are all under, World Rugby, and something that we stand firm and we believe in. We have small issues like in other countries, school attendance ,community assistance, so with rugby instilling discipline in schools it plays a big role with our selections and with character building of our children for our future, on and off the field.”

With limited competition at home, Kaierua said Fiji provides the perfect environment for meaningful match experience.

“Unfortunately we do not have much clubs to play against each other ,so with this tour and playing against many of the clubs in Nadi and around Fiji, that’s the whole purpose, just to really get the kids what they’ve learnt throughout the year back at home and to really share it to the world.”

He says Nauru Rugby hopes to make participation in Fiji an annual part of its development plans.

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