Four former Ba players have moved to Tavua in the mid-season transfer window on a better deal and to secure more game time.
Veteran midfielder Malakai Tiwa, defender Manasa Nawakula and attackers Rithik Prakash and Junior Balbir Singh were part of the match day squad for the gold miners when they faced Tailevu Naitasiri in Round 11 of the Digicel Fiji Premier League on Sunday.
Tiwa and Singh have made their first move from the Men in Black camp while Prakash and Nawakula had made a switch earlier on.
Prakash, a former Fiji U17 and U20 rep had a stint with Nadi before returning to Ba last season while Nawakula recently featured for Lautoka in their Fiji FACT triumph in Suva.
For 36-year-old Tiwa, who was loyal to the black jersey for close to 15 years, the move to Tavua fulfill his mother, Akanisi Raici’s dream.
“It was time to make a move to stay consistent in the games.”
“When I was playing in Ba, I was like an impact player and now I bring all my experience to help Tavua in the League.”
“My family is from Nadarivatu and my mum also encouraged me to join Tavua,” he told FijiLive.
“I have been staying away from her for some time but now that age is also catching up with her, I just want to be there to support her.”
The former national central midfielder aims to improve his fitness and work around his ball distribution ahead of the match against Navua this week.
“I take every game as a lesson to learn from the young and senior players to improve on things I fail at in the game.”
“Naitasiri has a lot of young players and we couldn’t match their energy which means that we have to be physically fit to battle against the opponents.”
“Fitness is something I’m more focused on right now because that resulted in slow passes which saw the game going the other way.”
Nawakula on the other hand said the side will need to play according to their game plan and put more focus in their defensive style of football.
“Instead of applying our game plan into action, sometimes we just shift our focus to what the opponents are doing and that’s what happened in the game against Naitasiri.”
“We have to be aggressive in our defence. We let our guard down and Naitasiri saw that, came in and scored.”
“We want to play in the BOG and I’m confident the boys will train hard and work on the weaknesses to make a good comeback next week.”
Tavua will face Navua in Round 12 of the Digicel Fiji Premier League this week.
