THE five-day Easter Basketball Championships held over the weekend was hailed a success by the organisers.

New kids on the block, the Raiwaqa Basketball Players Association, were asked to organise the tournament and achieved what their expectations.

Tournament official Mala Ravai said the RBPA was born late last year and to have successfully organised the biggest national basketball tournament was an achievement itself.

Ravai said they managed to organise a historical meet in more ways than one.

"For the first time we had 28 teams playing in the Easter championships in the history of the game," Ravai said.

"We provided prize-money for the winners for the first time and also for the first time we finished our tournament before 5pm on Saturday.

"It is common knowledge that every year Easter Championships always finish either very late on Saturday night or on Monday afternoon.

"But we've managed to organise this year's tournament in such a way that we finished the final before 5pm. And also in the history of the Easter championships we had organised a special function to award prizes to
our winners."

Ravai said the secret to their success this year was the team work and dedication of all officials while preparations
and running of the tournament.

"The boys all put their heads together and worked really hard to put up a good show."

Even though there were some minor hiccups, Ravai said these were something they would learn from and implement when they next organised a tournament.

"We have learnt a lot this year and we are proud to say that we are ready if Basketball Fiji gives us the honour to
organise the Easter championships again next year."

Ravai thanked their sponsors."We're lucky that Post Shop came in to work with RBPA when we hosted a
tournament in Raiwaqa early this year where a partnership was created.

"I believe after seeing that they got their mileage from their first sponsorship they decided to increase their sponsorship in the Easter
tournament.

 "We're happy that Post Shop has promised to assist us again next year and we hope to organise an even better tournament in
2010."

The Fiji Times Online

Wednesday, April 15, 2009