It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
The name of Christopher Raju has come up in conversations Nasinu were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Amani Makoe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
In brief
SquadAmani Makoe falls out with a teammate over standards
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasinu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasinu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Nasinu can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Bruce Hughes had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Suva were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Dave Nakaci, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Rusiate Singh did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Shivam Shandil has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rusiate Singh. 1‑0 against Rewa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nobody at Nasinu will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
11 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The words a physio says slowly. 124 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Nasinu will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The words a physio says slowly. 106 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Nasinu will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasinu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasinu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nasinu will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Nadroga for Christopher Raju was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nasinu they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nasinu will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nasinu they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Navua moved on, Lauren Bali reports back to Nasinu, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.