A TOTAL of 20 schools will compete in the Fiji National Rugby League secondary schools competition this year.
While this is a decrease of five schools, the FNRL is excited about the five new schools that will participate in the Fiji Secondary Schools Rugby League Vodafone Trophy for the first time.
FNRL and the Fiji Secondary Schools Rugby League Association executives met last Saturday to discuss the number of schools participating and the plans for the 2013 competition. FNRL general manager Tomi Finau said even though there was decrease in the number of schools participating, the sport was still expanding.
"The five schools from last year did not show any interest for this year but we are happy that five new schools will take part," he said.
"Ratu Latianara Memorial College, Navuso Methodist High School, Dudley High School, Assemblies of God High School and Ahmadiyya Muslim College are the new five schools."
Finau said for this year, the FNRL was not looking at quantity but were aiming to improve quality.
"We want to focus more this year on quality, we want improve our quality of support, assistance and service to the schools.
"We want to give a better quality of guidance to the schools for the competition so that the end result is quality in the standard of competition."