21 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.
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.
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.
70 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.
119 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Nasinu, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Maikah Dau is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
133 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.
2 behind and going nowhere, until Tuimasi Begg decided otherwise. Tailevu Naitasiri had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
The hardest thing about being 16 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrick Matai did not need any: 8.41, 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 16-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrick Matai 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.
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. 17 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Jonetani Buksh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Jonetani Buksh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
40 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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Jonetani Buksh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jone Naraba commits to Nasinu for another 2 years.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Nasinu training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amani Makoe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nasinu have let the market know Manit Lal can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Market7 Feb 2028
The window shut and Patrick Matai is still in the building
Nasinu spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
47 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nasinu can pretend not to have heard.
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.
In brief
SquadAmani Makoe falls out with a teammate over standards