Hi everyone, I’m going to blog/write notes for myself, if anyone finds them interesting or has questions, just let me know! I’m watching from home and I’m not necessarily going to watch every match. I apologise if I spell names wrong, Fijians, Samoans and Tongans in particular have gnarly names for an English-speaker!
The commentary team is Kell Harrison and Hannah Kuhar, and our first game is Fiji Pearls (ranked 14) coached by Jioweli Vakamoce, vs Samoa (18) coached by Natalie Matthews. Vakamoce is a man, he is an interim Pearls coach and this will be his debut. Matthews is also new, I believe she’s Australian.
Part of the benefit of me writing all this down is that you won’t need to listen to all the preambles. Hannah Kuhar alluded to Fiji coming second last year (to Tonga) and being a developing team, and that she thought the game would be a nail-biter. The only Fijian name I really know is Kalera Nawai who does play in ANZP or at least used to.
Somoa – we all know Kristiana Manu’a who was a GD for Giants then Mavericks etc etc, and actually played at least one test for Australia, she’s gone “home” to play for her country now, and the other one I know for sure is Renee Savai’Inaea who is a strong defensive midcourter C/WD and allegedly GD, currently playing for Southern Steel. Natalie Matthews has set a goal for Samoa of reaching the top 10.
Kell Harrison mentions that she expects Fiji to use basketball-like flair, and they’re talking about a few dual-code athletes.
