The President and Chairman of the organising committee for the 38th FIJI BITTER Marist 7s tournament announces today that team registrations have superseded previous years and the response has been overwhelming with over 86 teams showing interest and majority paying full team deposits well before the closing date.
This is a good sign that teams and officials have taken heed of our calls to register and pay in full before the closing date of the 19th Feb. With twenty (20) plus days to go the tournament, we are totally inundated with telephone calls with more teams wanting to come in says the President of the Marist Rugby Club Mr Lawrence Tikaram.
“As of late last night we were still receiving calls.”
Lawrence Tikaram. Photo: MARGARET NAQIRI.
However this year many teams will be turned away again and it’s most unfortunate that this has to happen. It’s really heart wrenching for us as organisers as we would love to accommodate more teams but time, ground space and quality of the tournament is a key driving factor in having just 64 teams in main cup competition. Logistically we could just add more grounds but they would cause more concerns for us as teams need to be in one area and play all their games in one venue which is easier for management and team players as well.
This weekend we will now have to verify all team names and deposits made. However we have some major concerns that some teams have also deposited with no names and if we cannot verify who they are, they will be dropped and again a laxity on team officials when attending to the finer details of team management. Next year we will set in place new measures to avoid this happening.
Tournament coordinator Mr Koli Korovulavula will now have the task of preparing teams into pools to finalise once all teams are confirmed, before we move into the next step of Team draws. This will all be announced next week Friday (draws and pools).
In the meantime we are asking all teams to contact us to verify their deposits versus what we have on record so we can announce the teams next week. All teams to contact us on 9998896 or 7027462 between this Sunday February16th till Tuesday 18th Feb latest 10pm. If those teams fail to verify with us they will be dropped and all other teams on standby almost 20 teams will be called to pay in full deposits and qualify.
The next important stage now is for teams to send in players names (15) and officials (3) names and forms will be available from the Marist Rugby Club from next week . All players and officials names for registrations close on 28th Feb 2014.
Tournament is scheduled for March 7th and 8th and for all tournament details do contact us on 7027462, 9998896, and 9753170.
PRESS RELEASE