Dogs to repeat Fiji mission


Young Fijian Solomoni Loki has
impressed during his time with the
Bulldogs


THE WESTERN Bulldogs radical raid on Fiji is already bearing fruit, and the concept will be repeated again this year.

The Dogs took their recruiting drive offshore late last year, and after screening about 500 young Fijians over a couple of days at a recruitment camp returned with a couple of names.

One, Inoke Ratu, has been denied entry into the country because his father is a soldier with the Fiji Military Forces and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has placed restrictions on the immediate families of some members of the Fiji military and other Fijian officials entering Australia as a result of the 2007 military coup.

But it's better news for Solomoni Loki, who has just completed a week with the Bulldogs, getting a start in Australian Football.

"Solomoni stood out – he was 16 at the time, showed excellent speed and good game-sense as well as a good vertical leap, so we thought there was a little bit to work with," Bulldogs recruiting manager Simon Dalrymple said.

"He was about 185cm, but he's grown a bit since then.

"I just bumped into him in the change rooms, and he's had a great week.

"All his kicking, marking, handball, ground-level skills, etc, have all been videoed and assessed.

"He's had a full medical screening, he's gone to Sandringham Beach and done running, boxing and swimming in 40-degree heat, strength testing and core training.

"He's had his 20m speed and agility filmed and tested, and he's done some decision-making activities involving some handball.

"He's done a lot of touch work – he's handled the footy over a thousand times over the week."

The AFL is hoping to get a competition running in Fiji, possibly as early as this year, and if that happens, Loki will play in it.

If not, he'll just continue with the training regime that the Bulldogs have designed for him.

"It's a two-year program for him – basically, at the end of his 18th year we'll make a decision on whether we relocate him to Australia.

"He's been on a training program and that will continue – we've got a guy in Fiji who's basically training the boys a couple of times a week.

"They're on a strength and conditioning program as well as a skills program.

"Part of that training is watching a lot of videos of games of footy, learning all about the skills of the game.

"He'll send through his weekly training plan to our development coach, and the next level of his development is that we would go back over there as part of our next talent ID as part of our Fiji project."

The Bulldogs are also still exploring their legal options in relation to getting Ratu into the country.
for westernbulldogs.com.au