Selwyn youth worker competes in Asia Pacific Fistball Championships
The Asia-Pacific Fistball Championships are hosted in Prebbleton this week and we speak to Rolleston-based Roma Tovia who will represent Samoa.
Roma Tovia will pull on Samoa colours close to home when the upcoming Asia-Pacific Fistball Championships bring international competition to Kakaha Park in Prebbleton this week.
For the Rolleston resident, the tournament is a chance to introduce friends, family and his wider community to a sport he discovered almost by accident. “Hopefully there will be a big turnout for people to come and see what it’s actually all about,” says Tovia who will compete against New Zealand, Australia and Japan in the four-day event that starts November 12.
The 36-year-old was introduced to the sport by a friend who invited him to training, describing fistball as something like volleyball, but that was only half the story.
Tovia says the outdoor game combines aspects of volleyball and tennis, with players sending the ball over a net and allowed to let it bounce once. Five players must cover a large court. “You have to be on your feet at all times, as it’s a big space to cover,” says Tovia. When the Samoan side first came together, recruited through friendships and social media, they only had six or seven weeks to learn before their international debut. “We were all new to it,” laughs Tovia, who is familiar to stepping into new territory.
He grew up in South Auckland and moved south in his early twenties, wanting a different direction after making choices he says he should not have made. “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and try somewhere else,” says Tovia who visited a girlfriend in Christchurch and never left.
The trip was only supposed to be a two-week visit, but he was immediately taken with the people, environment and sense of peace. “The first day, I fell in love with it,” who has now built a life in Canterbury, first in Christchurch, but moved to Selwyn five years ago.
“I love it because it gives you a space to grow,” says Tovia, who bought a Rolleston home with his partner Zoya and two children, a four year-old boy Roman and a baby daughter Fay who was born only weeks ago.
Tovia explains that her birth was anything but routine, arriving unexpectedly and at home, with the father forced to deliver his baby.
“Beforehand I wasn’t even that keen to be in the room for the birth, but the moment arrived, I just had no choice and had to get in there,” laughs Roma.
When he is not looking after his family or on the fistball field, Tovia works on the frontline with young people and families across Christchurch. He describes the work as “very intense”. The former South Auckland youngster has now spent over a decade in the sector, starting in residential youth justice settings, before moving into community work with non-government providers. Tovia explains that he has no formal qualifications, but brings an understanding shaped partly by the paths he took before leaving Auckland.
“I have life experience from when I was in their place when I was young, so I understand what they are going through and love helping to break that same cycle that I was in.”
Returning home after work to Selwyn, he values the space, a slower pace and a feeling of safety. “When I see some people complaining on the Rolleston Facebook page about not feeling safe, I just have to laugh and think ‘you guys don’t even know what unsafe looks like’.”
Last modified: 12 Nov 2026 8:44am