The Northland Rugby Union has brushed aside expectations for a big carnival to celebrate its historic Farebrother-Sullivan Trophy win over Tailevu on Saturday.

The franchise from Tailevu North rewrote Fiji rugby history over the weekend at the Vodafone Ratu Cakobau Park by wresting the prestigious trophy from its neighbours and relatives, Tailevu Rugby Union, with a 15-13 victory.

NRU secretary Tevita Kanalagi confirmed that there were no immediate plans for a wholesale party to commemorate the rugby flourish.

“We are represented by a vanua that is filled with very strong traditional knit. We are vanua-based and had been supported and run by the same people since becoming a major union player. We thank the vanua for the win and dedicate the trophy to them,” he added.

“There are plans for a minor celebration but the team will meet the vanua on Tuesday at Korovou Town. Foremost we will go back to the Fiji Military Forces to thank them for helping us and also our sponsor Uprising Hotel in Deuba. They bought us a scrummaging machine and that helped us beat Tailevu.”

“On Tuesday we will traditionally present the trophy to the people of Tailevu North and then resume training to prepare for Naitasiri,” Kanalagi added.

The Naimasimasi Villager also shot one back at critics who claimed that Northland’s win was a consolation from referee James Bolabiu.

“Fiji is quick to criticize. It was a hard earned battle where we lost some good men to injuries. Bolabiu is a world class referee and he picked up some intentional professional foul that any other referee could have missed. Sairusi Kadi was sin-binned because he was lying on top of the ball during a ruck situation. It looked unintentional, but that’s a professional foul that Bolabiu picked up. We won because we were determined to win and we played aggressive legal rugby against a superior power of Fiji rugby,” he added.

The NRU will meet tomorrow to finalise celebration plans and a venue to host Naitasiri, Nadi and Suva-the remaining challengers to the coveted Fiji rugby silverware.

Fijilive

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