Ben Tei Cook Islands Rugby Union Celebration/Farewell Dinner I was fortunate enough to be part of the Cook Islands Rugby Union Celebration/Farewell Dinner to send off our National Rugby 15s team on their tour to participate in the Oceania Cup, Federations of Oceania Rugby Unions (FORU)’s regional championship for Development and Targeted Unions. The Oceania Cup is a very important tournament for FORU to kick-off the Oceania regional qualification process for Rugby World Cup 2015. Our young warriors along with their support team will be travelling to Papua New Guinea in early July to win the Oceania Cup. Standing in the path of their quest will be teams from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tahiti whom are also seeking to triumph and progress into the second stage of the qualifying process. 2014 will see the Oceania Cup Champion take on Fiji on a one off match with the winner gaining direct qualification to RWC 2015 in England. The Manukau Rovers Club Room was brimming to maximum capacity with friends, supporters and families in attendance to celebrate and farewell our boys. Papa Orometua Tekotia Tangi brought the heavens into our presences with an opening prayer and with the aid of the team manager Cam Kilgour conducted the uniform blessing ceremony. The effervescent Master of Ceremony Clee Masters of Arorangi conducted a fabulous and humorous evening guiding the guests through the events of the night. The President of CINZRU Mr Turua Ford led the long line of guest speakers by welcoming the 200 plus guests acknowledging the sponsors and those that travelled from afar. His newly appointed Cook Islands counterpart and CISNOG vice President Lara Sadaraka next address the full house. Vaniva’s Catering Services laid out a typically Cook Islands smorgasbord menu of chop soy, mayonnaise, roasted chicken, salads, pumpkin poke with sides of taro and the ever popular raw fish and not forgetting the ever present doughnut. At the end of the smorgasbord table, a lone carver was busy reducing a leg of ham to bone. The size of one’s eyes was equally matched with the size of one’s plate and judging by the mountains of delicious food heaped on every ones supersize plates, their eyes were indeed bigger than their tummies. After dinner, the legendary former All Black and All Black 7s Captain Eric Rush was first up on the podium with hilarious anecdotes of his childhood and his equally funny initiations into the All Blacks brotherhood. He also made light of regrets and missed opportunities but then realized that he had not expressed anything remotely inspiring, He then spoke of Pacific Islanders being natural athletes and that natural abilities can take you a long way but to make it the rest of the way requires hard word, a lot of hard work. Our second guest speaker, our own MP Alfred Ngaro utilized his political knack for talking to capture his audience following Eric Rush’s rowdy and hilarious stories. James Summers of Kiwi Gear Ltd donated boxing gears and autographed rugby balls and assisted with the auction to raise funds for our touring national team. Charlie Borrell, CINZRU Vice President addressed the major sponsors, Matson Shipping, Onu Apparels and acknowledged the support and presence of Rosie Blake the CISNOC Secretary General, Taime Pareanga Samuel CINZSCCF Secretary and ACISA representatives and CIDANZ CEO Ina Michael and Rouruina Browne. Other notable mentions were former All Black Bradley Mika and girlfriend, Pa Ariki of Vaka Takitumu, Ngereteina Puna and Family, Nana Kamo Mataroa of Arorangi Community, the Mitiaro Community and finally Louisa Peters, Cook Islands Weight Lifting Olympian. We would like to wish our young warriors all the best on your tour. You have donned the weighty mantle of representing our nation and that we are all so proud of you. Kia Orana e Kia Manuia
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:33:02 +0000
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