“You are ******** kidding me!”: Adrian Vowles on the "diabolical" decision to exclude Fiji from the 2021 World Cup

I lost some faith in rugby league, the game I loved, after being replaced as head coach of the Queensland women’s team in 2017.

I'd been coaching on and off for a number of years, starting with Castleford's Colts, and then as player-coach with Wakefield Trinity in Super League. I've also been involved with Burleigh Bears, Queensland age-group teams, and the Jillaroos as assistant coach to the late, great Steve Folkes.

But when I was sacked as coach of Queensland after a loss to NSW (who Queensland hasn’t beaten since), I lost the urge to coach. I didn't like the politics of it all.

One day I read an article that Fiji Rugby League was creating a women’s team with a view to competing in the 2021 World Cup. It piqued my interest.

I flicked a text to Fiji Bati Team Manager, the former Roosters and Bulldogs player James Pickering, who I’d stayed in touch with since we played at Castleford, to see if the women’s team had a coach. I was expecting him to say they did. Instead he asked was I interested. Of course I said I was.

Jimmy said he’d talk to Fiji Bati Head Coach Brandon Costin and in April of 2019, with the board’s blessing, Brandon offered me the role. Fiji RL Chairman Peni Musunamasi rang to confirm my appointment and gave me some details about the June Test against PNG Orchids.

Sadly I would never meet Peni as he passed away soon after. But what he did achieve before his passing was to name our team the Fiji Bulikulas, after a rare type of golden cowrie shell that traditionally signifies chiefly status.

Then it was go-go-go. I had to pick a squad of 18 players for the Test with half from Fiji and half from Australia.

The first ever Fiji Bulikulas before their historic first Test.

Brandon was in Fiji and picked the girls from there in the positions I needed, while I picked the girls in Australia by watching NSW games on video and Queensland games live.

In the end we came up with what I thought was a very strong – albeit very unknown – team.

We did have four Olympians who’d played Rugby Sevens for Fiji, so I knew we had some talent.

But I was worried about the team gelling because: a) we didn’t know each other; b) the girls from Fiji were very shy and the Aussie-Fijians did most of the talking; and c) we only had six days to prepare for a Test against a team that had played in the last World Cup.

But my fears disappeared immediately after our first “Devotion” session. It was through prayer, personal stories and hymns that I knew, right then and there, on a Tuesday morning at 7:32am, that our team would gel.

In fact I knew we would win.

It’s hard to explain unless you’re a part of it. But right at that moment I knew that I was supposed to coach this team. It was amazing.

"It changed my life": Adrian Vowles says coaching the Fiji Bulikulas is the best thing he's done in rugby league.

Every day I tried to take something from our Devotion sessions with our Pastor Ilaitia Tagituimua, and I would entwine that with rugby league and make it the point of our training sessions.

The shy Fijian girls found voice and became leaders. They gained respect from the Aussie-Fijian girls. As each day went on their personalities came out, many of which were quite cheeky, which I loved.

It didn’t matter how tired you were because once we had done our Devotion sessions, you felt amazing, energised.

They also had the most amazing voices. Beautiful voices. Each training session would finish with a hymn which made us bond even closer.

And I can honestly say being coach of the Fiji Bulikulas is the best thing I have ever done in football.

On game day we went for a walk, did our Devotion then boarded the team bus with the Fiji Bati boys forming a tunnel and singing hymns for the Bulikulas. Again – amazing, beautiful voices; a spine-tingling scene. 

Into the dressing shed at Leichhardt Oval and I was nervous but also confident. I could sense something big was about to happen.

We sang the anthem and then “Oqo na noqu masu” (“This is my prayer”) which gave me goosebumps like I’ve never felt before. I felt like I was about to run on and play.

The game started and we scored in our first set. And we went on to win our first ever Test match 28-nil.

Fiji Bulikulas ahead of their country's first ever Test match. They would beat PNG 28-nil. Fiji was not included in the World Cup. PNG is.

In the dressing room we sang, we danced, and we sang some more, it was an amazing feeling and one I will never forget long as I live. We had played as one – we didn’t have a bad player - and the Fiji Bulikulas had made history and created a pathway for other Fijian girls to follow.

The team formed again in October the same year to play the Australian Prime Minister’s XIII in Suva.

The week was brilliant, if hectic – in hindsight too hectic, we were on our feet too much. But we trained well and I was very confident we could beat the Aussies. Alas, though we had our chances and led for the majority, we went down 22-14.

But to say I was proud is an understatement. And to play in front of our home crowd was amazing as well. The cultural aspect of the whole week was amazing and I'm sorry for over-using the word! But it blows my mind how good it is.  

What made the games even better was that my assistant coach was Grant Bignell - the first bloke I sat next to when I moved from Cunnamulla to Charleville in 1982! And there we were, together again, coaching in another country and helping create history.

As I said – best thing I’ve ever done in footy. The whole experience changed me.

Right and honourable: Fiji Buliklulas head coach Adrian Vowles (left) with Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison.

By July of 2019 I was rocked again. Indeed I was shocked, flabbergasted. And angry.

I was scrolling through Twitter one night and saw the announcement of the teams for the 2021 World Cup in England. The Fiji Bulikulas were not among them.

After our Test win over PNG, a top-tier nation, I'd assumed we’d be in automatically. How wrong I was.

I don’t usually get upset, and especially not on Twitter. But I wrote – and I stand by it still – “You are ******* kidding me!".

My heart sank, I was so disappointed. And then anger set in. It’s still with me. I simply could not and can not believe it; and I let my frustrations out on Twitter.

The fact that I had to find out on social media was bad enough. Then to have to tell my players and staff that we weren’t in the World Cup was just gutting, for myself as much as anyone.

To this day I still cannot get my head around why we are not there. There are teams qualified without playing a game. There are Test nations that have not played a game since the last World Cup. I could not believe that Brazil got in ahead of us. At the time I didn’t know Brazil played rugby league. I do now, of course, and don’t get me wrong – I’m very happy for a great servant of rugby league, Rob Burgin, and his crew from Brazil. That's them below and I wish them all the best.

But the Bulikulas should be there. And it remains a flat-out diabolical decision to exclude a team that could have genuinely competed in – even won – the Rugby League World Cup. Just playing in the tournament would have been a massive boost for women's rugby league in Fiji, it would’ve made so many girls want to play for the Bulikulas.

I appealed the decision and sent it up to the Fiji RL. But sadly a decision was made not to proceed.

I’ve since found out that though our game against PNG was played 28 months before the World Cup, the decision to exclude us had already been made before the Orchids game was played.

How is that right? How is that fair?

There is light: a women’s competition will hopefully be up and running this year in Fiji, or if not in 2021. We also have a great board in Fiji that wants to grow the women’s game.

Hopefully in a few years we will have a Female Silktails team that will play in the NSW Cup, like the men have.

I don’t know when our next game will be but ideally, we want to play in 2020. It will come down to finances and COVID-19.

I do know I want to continue to coach and to grow this team. It is an amazing role. As I said - a life-changer.

I would love the chance for the Fiji Bulikulas to play the Australian Jillaroos in Australia this year. It would be another David versus Goliath battle, Fiji Bulikulas against the best team in the world.

It would be amazing.

C’mon Australia. C’mon Jillaroos head coach Brad Donald. Let's make it happen.