Each year, SUFC welcomes a variety of cultures and heritages to our club. Many of our players hail from different backgrounds which we want to honour and recognise as a Club. As such, on Saturday 30 July, at our final home game of the year when the men host West Harbour and the women host the Two Blues we will be wearing the Club’s first ever Pasifika jersey.
The jersey was designed by a group of SUFC’s Pacific Island players. The jersey includes patterns, symbols and totem’s inspired by the backgrounds of Māori, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Indigenous, Samoa and Tonga heritages and the connection to SUFC. You can read more about these below.
MAORI – Mangopare. It symbolises strength, determination, strong will and fighting spirit which are all traits of the players at Uni. The symbol depicts a hammerhead shark which Māori believed to be protective spirits so they wore shark necklaces.
FIJI – QALITOKA. This symbol in Fiji represents the unity of people to one mindset in executing a given task. This relates to the mindset we have whenever we don the SUFC jersey.
PAPAU NEW GUINEA – The kumul (bird of paradise), is the national emblem of PNG which represents freedom and independence. The most well-known language in PNG is Tok Pisin. In Tok Pisin “Wantok” means “one talk” – meaning the language of the tribe or clan that a person belongs to. When you see another person from PNG, you look at them and say “wantok” which indicates you are from the same tribe, you have the same values and respect for each other, similar to our club values.
INDIGENOUS – This icon represents meeting place (concentric circles) and journey path (lines). The meeting place is culturally a significant site to Aboriginal men and women. It is a place where Aboriginal people meet, gather around, sitting in circles, and celebrate. Much like the SUFC community.
SAMOA – Fa’aulutao – The spearhead signifies courage of a warrior and strength to fight battles while also offering protection. Lalaga: Weaving pattern, weaving together of families, cultures and community and in breakable bonds.
TONGA – Manulua is the name for one of the oldest design patterns found in the making of traditional Tongan bark cloth. As the oldest rugby club in Australia, this relates to SUFC. The deeper meaning of this pattern is to bring two groups or families together to form a new union.
SUFC supporters can preorder their own jersey via this link: https://www.sydneyunirugby.com.au/shop/item/pasifika-jersey
Note – Jerseys will take approx 12 weeks to arrive.