Aute Pasifika takes on Netball Samoa in friendly game

By Talaia Mika 07 January 2019, 12:00AM

The Aute Pasifika kicked off their tournament with a friendly game against a Netball Samoa team at the National University of Samoa Gymnasium yesterday.

The objective of the tournament is for Australian-based Samoan girls and their Samoan-based peers to exchange experiences in netball and get to know each other.

The Aute Samoa is an Australian-based team, which was built up by Coach Aiulu Aoina for all Samoan netball girls in Australia, to have a place to develop their own talent in netball.

The tournament was planned to provide exposure for local girls with talent to play and for them to focus on getting the basics right.

“If we can get the basics right then we can keep moving. But I’m really happy for Netball Samoa that we have some good bunch of girls and they are the next generation of netball for Samoa,” said Rosemarie Esera, the Chief Executive Officer of Netball Samoa.

Aute Pasifika has three teams that they’ve brought over and will also play games in Savai’i as well, travelling over to the island tomorrow.

The development program is funded by Netball Samoa. Mrs. Aoina and Mrs. Esera planned the tournament through social media.

“This is the power of social media.”

“We planned this via social media, also adding the fact that we are related, so coach Aoina messaged me on Facebook, and asked how about we make a tournament and they come over to Samoa and so we agreed,” Mrs. Esera said.

Coach Aoina is grateful for the opportunity to visit the place which she and her team also call home, and she encouraged the netball players to give it their best.

“All you can do is in order to better yourself, you really need to train hard and really need to keep that training to maintain that consistency within the netball — and it takes a lot of dedication and support from parents,” Coach Aoina said.

By Talaia Mika 07 January 2019, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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