Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rewa can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Monit Chand 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Setareki Hughes is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Navua? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iosefo Verevou 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Patrick Joseph. 1‑0 against Labasa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Roy Baledrokadroka is 14, and Rewa have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Two goals and a mark of 8.09 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Rewa are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
“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 Rewa, 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 Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rewa, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Rewa know it.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rewa, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
8 new faces, and Rewa are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
11 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” James Hoyt is 36, with 103 appearances behind him, and Rewa will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Alipate Cama arrives from Ba with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Rewa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Isikeli Sevanaia has his answer from Rewa; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
“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 Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iosefo Verevou 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Add another name to the list: Tailevu Naitasiri have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aporosa Mocenica. The answer from Rewa has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nurmuhammad Abdug'aniyev and Rewa agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
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.
“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 Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Thabo Nkabinde has just signed for Rewa, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iosefo Verevou 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.
Nickel Raju is 14, and Rewa have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Beniamino Nakaci is 14, and Rewa have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rewa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Rewa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
SquadWords at Rewa training over how hard people work
134 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rewa 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 Rewa 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 142 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.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa 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 Rewa 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iosefo Verevou 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rewa, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rewa, another week without a signature from Abdurahmon Sulaymonov.
“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 Rewa, and it is not being withdrawn.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Rewa have gone and got theirs early.
A new face in his position, and Leon Kofana suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Rewa have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iosefo Verevou 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.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Rewa have gone and got theirs early.
“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 Rewa, 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 Rewa 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.
Rewa opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Mohammed Shaheer stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Labasa moved on, Jolame Domonikibau reports back to Rewa, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Rewa that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Rewa that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Josaia Sela signs something — a contract at Rewa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Tevita Kalounaiwai, 16 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rewa has been clear about where Tevita Kalounaiwai stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rewa 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Setareki Hughes’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rewa can pretend not to have heard.
Tevita Waranaivalu 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Setareki Hughes 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.
The phone has started ringing about Monit Chand again, and this time the name on the line is Tailevu Naitasiri. Rewa are listening politely and promising nothing.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.