Bula sports fans! Wow! What a week in sports! It all started last Tuesday with the race that stops a nation -- the 2008 Emirates Melbourne Cup and in particular the runaway winner at 46 to 1 -- the Bart Cummings-trained Viewed.
He's a cunning old silver haired fox that man Cummings; the night before I watched him play up all the overseas horses on the ABC TV's 7.30 Report, brushing aside the chances of his two horses and Zipping in particular as rank outsiders.
Imagine the pile of dosh Cummings would have picked up betting on his ol' nag!
All the Irish stable owners, trainers, jockeys plus all their wives in their finest greenery must still be crying into their Guinness after Viewed ran the perfect 3200m to whip them all by a nostril.
Thankfully I'm not a betting man and only ever have a tinker on the Melbourne Cup once every three years or so.
This year wasn't a leap year so I stayed away from hot tips Honolulu and Bauer who finished at opposite ends of the field I might add; second-last and second respectively. Maybe next year mate!
I hear through the grapevine that good ol' doc Sahu Khan and Raymond Stoddart have kissed and made up -- well sort of.
But before I spill the beans on all the gory details of how they made up, I must tell you about the sensational fried fish in miti, plus nama on the side that I had up at Takayawa's Restaurant in Toorak, Suva, last Saturday morning with my Tongan bride and our dear Aunty Betty from Nuku'alofa.
Between the two of them, they just about finished all the mana in miti and fresh melting cawaki.
My goodness where they put it all away remains a mystery to modern science!
The prices are very reasonable too, so a big malo aupito Vili Takayawa!
Meanwhile, back with the big kiss and make up: The president of Fiji Football Association met William Parkinson, managing director of Communications Fiji Limited (CFL), operator of Radio Sargam, the station for which Stoddart commentates.
This, after CFL banned all coverage, news or mention of all football in Fiji across all its radio stations including Navtarang, VitiFM, FM96 and Legend in protest at the ol' doc's banning of Stoddart from doing any football commentaries in Fiji.
In true Pacific way, peace and goodwill has prevailed and football fans all over Fiji and abroad (via the internet) will be able to once again enjoy the soothing tone of Stoddart's smooth vocal chords calling their favourite footy plays!
Last week as well, out of the blue, I received a call from Kevin Neil, the former CEO of the Canberra Raiders and the man who signed Noa Nadruku for the Raiders in 1993.
Neil is now head of Swimming Australia and he was in Suva for a day to meet long-time swimming afficionado, Denis Miller and the other doctor prominent in sports in Fiji, good ol' doc Robin Mitchell.
Anyway, Neil and I caught up for a quick coffee, as all former rugby league officials do when we catch up and we reminisced about the greatest rugby league club team in the world ever!
The mighty Canberra Raiders of 1994, championship winners included rugby league superstars Brett Mullins, Mal Meninga, Ruben Wiki, Laurie Daley, Ricky Stewart, Bradley Clyde, Quentin Pongia, David Furner, John Lomax and our very own Noa Nadruku, who was the competition's leading try-scorer that year. After a couple of cappuchino's Neil said, "I can tell you some stories about that boy Noa", but he didn't.
Fast track to 2.30am Sunday and I was one of the die-hard (or dopey) Pacific Islander fans who got up to watch our coconuts take on the poms at Twickenham.
Listening to God save the Queen brought back fond, albeit faint, memories of colonisation, then the boys did their little island war dance bit, which I hate to say failed to frighten my aging mother, who yawned through the whole thing!
Obviously, some of our players have been up north too long and are starting to play like -- well highly paid (by South Pacific island standards) Northern Hemisphere club players. They scrummed and scrimmaged well and seemed to enjoy the forward charges making solid progress of a couple of metres at a time, which was okay progressive in phases, but all rather boring to be honest.
Maybe I'm old fashioned when it comes to back-play and I do admire the Australian rugby league-inspired flat backs on attack, pushing the pass in traffic so as to really turn up the heat on the defensive line.
But, but on the other hand, there is no more enjoyable sight on a rugby field of a flying Fijian or two running onto the ball at top speed with space and options in front of them!
The Pacific Islander backs lacked depth in their running lines on attack, relying too much on Rabeni or Mapasua to crash their way through from a standing start or by running back against the grain -- you guessed it, into the forwards (again).
It is still early days for this tour as they have the French and Italy to improve upon and I hope the Major-General reads The Fiji Times online from Europe just to keep an eye on political developments back home and spies my column.
My advice Sir is to buy the boys some coconuts and fish and give them an island feast to remind them of the spirit of Pacific Island adventure missing in their play.
They need to run and throw the ball around with gay abandon.
Leave the tight forward stuff to the Tongans and the big hits to the Samoans, but our Fiji boys must be told to run the ball from all angles, all parts of the park like how our boys in Lami do on the sand out on the low tide mark in front of Nukuwatu.
Don't worry about playing politically correct rugby.
Show the French and the Italians how rugby is played by the children of the sun!
I rest my case: Over to you coconuts!
