Cakaudrove has emerged as one of the strong performers at this year’s Crest Fiji Primary Schools Netball Tournament, with district teams booking eight spots in the finals across both Tier One and Tier Two divisions. The district’s success spanned five age groups — under-9, under-10, under-11, under-12 and under-14 — underscoring depth across its junior ranks.
Teams manager Maria Tikoisuva said the results were especially pleasing given the logistical hurdles the district faced. “It is a big place. We distributed the teams across three areas,” Tikoisuva said, explaining that schools were organised into three main groups to make training and coordination more manageable. One of those groups, she added, included mainland schools such as Pearls and Sharks alongside several smaller schools from the region.
Tikoisuva stressed that bringing more than 30 schools together was no small task. “It was a big challenge for us, especially with more than 30 schools involved. The timing and the location of the schools made it difficult to organise training,” she said, pointing to long travel distances and scheduling conflicts that coaches and managers had to contend with throughout the lead-up to the tournament.
Weather also disrupted Cakaudrove’s preparation and the wider competition schedule. The tournament had been due to run earlier, but persistent poor weather forced organisers to postpone matches. “We were supposed to have the tournament earlier, but due to weather conditions it was postponed. Instead of the original week, we moved it to Week 12, which still gave us a week for preparation,” Tikoisuva said, noting the delay ultimately allowed a short extra window for final preparations.
Despite those setbacks, Cakaudrove’s teams delivered consistent performances across the grades, converting that resilience into multiple appearances in the finals for both competition tiers. The district’s eight qualifying spots mark a significant achievement for the region and highlight the effectiveness of its grouping strategy in bringing disparate schools together for collective training.
With finals now secured, attention will turn to how Cakaudrove’s young players fare in the championship matches. The latest development confirms the district as a force in primary-school netball this season and reflects sustained grassroots commitment amid the organisational challenges of a geographically large district.