ANZAC Day in Rarotonga

ANZAC Day is a public holiday in the Cook Islands and is celebrated with a dawn service and a parade and wreath-laying ceremony at the war memorial which is now situated at the front of the courthouse.
There was controversy this year as ANZAC Day fell on a Saturday and the market stalls and many shops decided to open. Stallholders said Saturday was their most profitable day but some people thought it showed a lack of respect.
The advantage of a Saturday ceremony was that many people who were out shopping stopped to look and listen whereas on weekday public holidays the town is usually deserted!
We were lucky with the weather. The day started dull but dry and by 11 o’clock it was fine and sunny. Right now the Cooks are at the centre of a huge area of cloud and today (Sunday) it’s been raining most of the day and there is 100% cloud cover. It’s supposed to stay that way until Thursday according to the forecasts.
The ANZAC Day church service was held at Avarua CICC and following this the old soldiers (as well as sailors and airmen – male and female) marched to the courthouse followed by the Boys’ Brigade brass band. The uniformed organisations also joined the parade and by the time they reached the cenotaph it was an impressive display.
This first video is of the initial march leaving Avarua church.

Matthew Pierre dances at the Avatiu fundraiser

Here is another video from the Avatiu Eels rugby league fundraiser.
Matthew Pierre represented the premier grade team with this drum dance. The drummers are the Tumeke dance group players.

Cook Islands Games rugby sevens and netball

These are the last two Cook Islands Games sports code videos.
There were only six teams in the rugby sevens competition and two of them disappeared before the fifth/sixth place play-off. Well it was a hot day and liquid refreshment was obviously more attractive than a game that didn’t have much meaning. I believe Aitutaki (the boys in yellow) won the gold medal. Rugby has quite a bit of experience running tournaments so the mini games shouldn’t be a problem.
The two-evening netball competition was well-attended with plenty of vocal supporters as well as players. No doubt everyone is looking forward to the junior world champs in the new indoor stadium. The junior squad were in Rarotonga recently and had a couple of matches against the (senior) mini games squad. The seniors won both matches which ought to silence a few critics who have made snide comments about the age of some of the players. By all accounts the junior squad were very fit but the golden girls have experience and a killer instinct as well. Hard combination to beat.
It might seem that there’s been a huge amount of sport on this blog recently but people in the islands play a lot of different codes and inter-village rivalry is big in some of them. Now that the games are over it’s back to normal sporting activities until the international triathlon in May, netball in August and mini games in September.
One thing that does need fixing before then is getting the results on the web. The pages at Sporting Pulse never did get updated.