After some times of waiting the Solomon Islands Rugby Union Federation (SIRUF) in collaboration with its member union associations, its sponsorship partners and other stakeholders will officially kick start its programs and activities for the season this week.
The SIRUF calendar of events for this year (2016) is quite comprehensive which indicated that this year will be a very busy year for rugby in Solomon Islands. The calendar was blessed by members of the SIRUF council who met in Honiara two weekends ago for meetings and trainings.
There are a number of flagship development programs, tournaments and competitions lined up for this year, however, the exciting one for the federation is the Get Into Rugby (GIR) program, which is a World Rugby initiative that targets to get as many children, youth and women to be involved and be part of rugby, that SIRUF is looking to embark on this year.
SIRUF is also out to improve its standing in the international rugby arena this year, thus it will be embarking on a robust technical training and education program that is aimed to build the technical capacity of our local coaches, match officials and administrators in the union, while at the same time progresses some of these officials to attain international higher accreditation in various disciplines. The federation will also take drastic measures to improve the performance of its national teams in regional and international tournaments and competitions, by collaborating with the Federation of Oceania Rugby Unions (FORU) / World Rugby, other sports federations, the NSC and NOCSI, as well as looking offshore for desired technical support, expertise and personnel’s that will and who will help lift the standard of our national teams.
Realizing that they got a huge task ahead of them, SIRUF therefore seeks the support of its partners and stakeholders on and off the field, including the government, business houses and the national rugby family as it sets out to raise the profile of rugby in the country.
Also, in recognizing the tremendous support that had kept rugby thriving in the recent past the SIRUF leadership wishes to thank and acknowledge the support of the National Government; the Honiara City Council; the Guadalcanal Provincial Health Division; the Solomon Islands National University; the Malaysian Consulate in Solomon Islands; Silent World – major sponsor of the SI Inter Islands Rugby Championship 2013, 2014 and 2015; Credit Corporation – major sponsor of the 2015 High Schools Rugby competitions and SIRUF’s National 7s team; Soltuna – major sponsor of the pikinini rugby program in 2015; DJ Graphics – co-sponsor of the pikinini rugby program and support sponsor of SIRUF’s national teams; Solbrew Company Limited – the beverages partner of SIRUF; SI Ports Authority – major sponsor of SIRUF’s National 15s team and co-sponsor of the National 7s team; Iumi Kabani; Tongs Corporation; South Pacific Oil; Transol Shipping; Lee Kwok Kuen – Solomon Sheet Steel; Solomon Telekom; Pacific Casino; Solomon Airlines; National Fisheries Development; Cow Boys Bar & Grill; e-World Technologies; Bank South Pacific; Samlimsan; Solomon Forest Association; Island Enterprises Ltd; Diesel Services; Earth Movers; Pacific Insurance Brokers; Grand Pacific Investment Ltd; Trade Transformation; Victory Enterprises, Marenipai Shipping Ltd; MJ Bae; Jason Lee; Kenny Tong; Coco Zheng; Paul & Alex; Shalom & Andrew; Mr. Andrew Kerr; Frank Wickham and family; Kwan Amatanga & family; Joe Sika & family; the late Patrick Leong; John Tang; SK Teo; Tamana & family, and; other companies/organizations and individuals that we apologized may not have been listed, but had also supported SIRUF one way or the other.
