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Christian cricketers from Danger Islands Pukapuka

Posted on October 24, 2011

By ALAN ERSKINE

THEY come from an island that is often on the receiving end of cyclones and crushing Tsunamis…the last one less than two years ago. It’s about 1000 kilometres north–east of Raratonga, and closer to Hawaii than New Zealand.

ON THE BALL: Irymple Cricket Club captain Matt Kirirua and his wife Teoi (left), get ready for training with Matt’s sister Tanya.

It’s part of the Cook Islands group, known as Pukapuka – ‘The Danger Islands.’

The island is home to just 650 people in three villages. Theirs is one of the rarest languages in the world, spoken by fewer than 1000 people. People on islands in the same group don’t understand it.

Their kids are brought up on rugby, they have an immense love of all sport, and enjoy a strong Christian faith. It’s traditional that they pray before a game – for themselves and the other team – and win or lose go into a fearsome Maori-like Haka to thank the opposition.

When they’re old enough, they leave home to settle in various countries. That’s how the Kirirua family and some friends ended up in Australia – and Sunraysia. They live a simple, but very social, life, and have a great work ethic.

It wasn’t long after the arrival of the Kirirua family in Mildura that they ‘adopted’ Nichols Point as their very special cricket club. Here they’re known as the Pukapuka Pointers, and boy, can they belt a cricket ball!

When they finish a game, the whole team and dozens of family members join the opposition for a few drinks, then out come the guitars, ukeleles, symbols and ‘drums,’ and they sing songs from home long into the night.

Their ability, attitude, adaptability and sportsmanship has revitalised Nichols Point cricket, and captured the imagination of sporting leaders in Sunraysia. In recent years, the Kirirua boys have been joined by relatives and friends who have moved to Sunraysia, and at last count there were around 40 Islanders supporting the cricket team. That includes the juniors, and the womenfolk who have their own cricket team.

This season they might even have two teams. The Islanders have grown with Nichols Point, which this year has moved into the Sunraysia Cricket Association competition after many years in the Red Cliffs competition. Fittingly, they won the flag last year.

Nichols Point secretary Kel Liddle told me four years ago the Pukapuka Pointers were probably the best thing to happen to Nichols Point for decades. Club president, and local cricketing legend Joey Hensgen agrees. So too do vice-president Craig Alderton and director of coaching Paul Herrick…in fact, the whole club agrees.

The Islanders have brought a whole new dimension to the club, loyal, dedicated, fun to be around, plenty of ability, great sports…and they don’t mind chipping in to help in off-the-field functions and fund-raisers. Kevin Kiriaru, the first of the Kiriaru kids to migrate, is a long-time respected committeeman. Brother Matt is the team captain.

As we reported in our original story, opposition clubs love playing them. Peter Kelly from the Millewa was quoted as saying his game against Pukapuka was one of the most enjoyable he’d had in 30 years. Kel Liddle told me that in Pukapuka’s first year, he watched as A Grade players on an adjoining oval at Quondong Park stopped a game so their players could watch the Islanders do their traditional Haka.

It might be unconventional, but their approach is novel, sincere, and enthusiastic. Kel said the boys enjoyed special chants in their own language while fielding. In the early days, they had such a relaxed attitude toward the game that sometimes they lost a game purely because they wanted to make sure everyone on the team got a bat and a bowl. Now in the SCA Second Division, these highly competitive boys know they can’t afford that luxury.

The club’s major sponsor, Richard Tankard, a dual A Grade premiership batsman, is a frequent after-game visitor. Richard, of Tankard Dental, has even made up two sponsorship signs to be put around the boundary for the big–hitting Puka Puka boys to win cash incentives if they hit them.

The sporting success of the Islanders dates back to 2004, when Pukapuka’s Matt Kirirua approached the club after meeting a few of the Nichols Point boys who played touch footy.

They took up the cricket bat with a lot of success, playing in B Grade one-day games, and also A Grade. The following year more Pukapuka locals got involved, this time with Setts, and this led them to think about fielding their own Cook Islands team.

After asking around the SCA, Matt got back in touch with Nichols Point, who embraced the idea. Pukapuka had 22 registered players on Day One, and have won the hearts of the Nichols Point club, their supporters, and even opposition teams, with their sporting ability, easy-going attitude – and the guitar and ukelele-playing supporters on the hill!

They have brought a lot of their culture to Mildura.

Their island is pretty much a sandy atoll surrounding a lagoon, and has a static population of about 650. The population stays around that number as the the island’s agriculture can only sustain that many people.

At home, the boys play a local game of cricket using a bat similar to a baseball bat, but three–sided and carved from local wood. The balls are made out of a special type of vine from a particular plant that is wound tightly around a compacted inner. It’s roughly the same size and weight of a cricket ball.

When they’re hit sweetly the balls can travel much further than a cricket ball….these fun-loving guys say; “By about the length of daylight!” The umpires are special, and revered. Their task includes trying to keep people laughing all the time – it’s actually one of the rules. They play 30 a side, with a three team competition between the villages. You hesitate to ask about the ‘ovals’ and the ‘pitches’ they play on.

Cricket is the social game, they play some serious rugby. Some of the boys say that Matt was on the verge of All Black selection before he badly damaged a shoulder. The Islanders have a team in the local Rugby competition, a club that shares the basic facilities at Nichols Point.

On Pukapuka, as the kids grow up, they go to high school either in Raratonga or New Zealand, before deciding what direction to go in life, such as moving families to places like Mildura, Shepparton, Griffith and the Riverland. The tradition of leaving home early is what keeps the population of the Island steady.

The Pukapuka sports men and women range in age from 14 through to 43. A lot of them have only played schoolboy cricket, and they say one of their main aims in sport is to teach the younger kids how to play, and above all enjoy, the game. The Islanders involve their kids in everything they do.

Kel Liddle says this family involvement – wives, girlfriends, kids – is one of the best things to come out of having the Puka’s in the club. “It can be a pretty big entourage on its day,” he says. “They set up for cricket in a way that I’ve never seen in 30 years around the game.

They start with a traditional prayer for themselves, their opponents and the game. Then they go out and play like it’s the best thing that anybody had ever thought of.”

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