Fiji, Samoa, Tonga...

[Timbo]

Should these three nations be allowed to continue playing rugby tests as stand alone nations? In the light of the 90 odd point thrashing the AB's handed Fiji (the strongest of the three) this evening, I think not.

Last year, the combined Pacific Islands team thrashed the NSW Waratahs, and gave the Wallabies and Springboks a run for their money. So why should the IRB not say that from now on, they have to play as a unified team?

I know what you're thinking, this will de-value the sport as a national game. Why? I mean, look at cricket. Imagine, if Barbados, Jamaica, etc. had to compete as stand alone nations. It'd be even more embarassing than it already is. Instead, the unified West Indies puts up a respectable fight.

So why shouldnt the Pacific Islanders play as a unfied nation on a regular basis, and the national teams be restricted to inter-island competitions?

 

[ozbash]

i think that they should play as individuals when playing a pacific cup type tournament but should play as a combined PI team when playing a top 10 team-aust-nz-south africa-england,ireland-scotland-wales-france and i,d include the PI team in that as well.

i say a PI team would have won the UK home nations comp, i say that a PI team would make top 4 in the world and on its day beat anyone.

what that game last night did for fijian footy is anyones guess..
good to see the AB,s in such great form but i,d rather they totally demoralized a nz provincial team .

why dont they play the winners of the Super 12 in a warm up ?
i realise the crusaders have a few AB,s but it wasnt the entire squad playing last night anyway, half of them are in the maori team tonight.

 

[AliN]

For once I agree with Ozbash
The way the PI team rattled a few feathers last year in 3 games, they have the potential to go a lot further.

 

[weasel]

Well, during the week I read about a mooted "Super 8's" tournament, to be played every June, involving Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Japan plus the four aussie Super 12 sides minus their wallaby players. I think it would be a start in trying to make them more competitive.

 

[Twizzle]

yep

I think if they played as a combined team, they may actually get better and be more competitive, and as far as crowds go, who would want to go and see another game like last night?

perhaps they could even have been the Super 14th team.

 

[Timbo]

OK most of the posts here suggest it would be a good idea, yet the poll suggests opposite.

I'd like to hear any reasons why not.

 

[bayrep]

I dont want to see the PI nations combined. What they need is some backing from the IRB and some consistant games. IF they had the backing and consistant games you wouldnt see as many PI players wanting to turn out for AB's and Wallabies it would put some pride back in their jersey. Any team that gets to play the top teams is always going to improve, this goes for other teams like the Argies, Japan, Cananda, USA the top nations and the IRB treat them like fillers at the world cup then forget them for another 4 years. The combining of the PI's is a novalty factor once that had worn off they would have been back to where they are now.

 

[Timbo]

Yes but the Argies, Japan, Canada and the USA have massive populations that the PI's are missing.

It's exactly the same principal as the West Indian cricket team.

 

[ozbash]

the PI countries could play the local comps- pacific cup and whatever- as individual countries/states/provinces.

when theres an international they combine as 1 team. simple.

and i agree, the combined PI team was the logical s14 choice but they would have been too powerful.

 

[Resident Warrior]

No they shouldn't be forced to merge together the plight of the PI teams in recent years has been due to the fact the IRB don't give a f*ck about minnows especially in the pacific islands region and southern hemisphere in general.

As it has been stated many times before the Pacific islands region has long been the hoar of world rugby as clubs from all over the world steal it's players this is bad enough but when the clubs pressure players into not representing their country aka "holding a gun to their head" it borders on almost criminal yet the IRB do jacksh*t to help them.

Also the IRB sits on a goldmine yet do nothing to help them financially even though Fiji recorded one of it's worst financial losses last year.

Are we forgetting:
Samao reach the quater finals of the RWC in 91 back when the game was still amatuer and almost pulled off the upset of the tournament in the 2003 WC against England?
That Fiji used to be probably the most enjoyable team to watch because of their great mix of skill, speed and flair?

If the new "Super 8" comp goes ahead next year it will drastically help these nations progress further since players won't have to travel overseas to play in a professional comp.

Still the merits of a combined PI team are there and I wouldn't mind seeing them tour once in a while like the Lions.

 

[The Observer]

The PIs should not be forced to merge into a combined team to play the elite. However, they should be given incentives to do it i.e. regular tests against SANZAR teams at home and away (with the home games being staged in Sydney or Auckland), and tour games in the UK and France.

Besides the new Super 8, the individual PIs should be given an expanded Pacific Cup program (home and away series) and Tier 1 nations should be encouraged to send some form of touring teams there e.g. the NSW Waratahs development team could go there as they have gone to Argentina and Eastern Europe, the NZ Divisional XV, England and French A teams etc.

The eligibility laws must be changed too.

 

[strong_latte]

i think that they should play as individuals when playing a pacific cup type tournament but should play as a combined PI team when playing a top 10 team-aust-nz-south africa-england,ireland-scotland-wales-france and i,d include the PI team in that as well.

i say a PI team would have won the UK home nations comp, i say that a PI team would make top 4 in the world and on its day beat anyone.

what that game last night did for fijian footy is anyones guess..
good to see the AB,s in such great form but i,d rather they totally demoralized a nz provincial team .

why dont they play the winners of the Super 12 in a warm up ?
i realise the crusaders have a few AB,s but it wasnt the entire squad playing last night anyway, half of them are in the maori team tonight.

As much as I dislike you OzBash you have perfectly articulated the way I feel about this! When playing each other, the PI could play as separate nations, sorta like a State of Origin situation, but if ever they are going to play any international team outside that sphere, they should always play as their combined entitiy! They may not have won any matches against the sanzar nations last year, but they sure did push us! With more time togeather, better coaching and finicial assistance they could conceivably do anything!

 

[meltiger]

Samao reach the quater finals of the RWC in 91 back when the game was still amatuer and almost pulled off the upset of the tournament in the 2003 WC against England?

That was a sensational night. 30 odd thousand people all passionately cheering Samoa in Melbourne.

I cannot beleive the difference between the team I went and watched that night and the rubbish I saw last weekend.

Did they field a weakened team? If not the IRB should hold their grubby, greedy heads in shame.

 

[meltiger]

& personally, I have to disagree Tony, the PI team should be a novelty like the Lions are, coming together every few years.

Even if they say undertake a Tri Nations tour every two years and compete as Tonga, Samoa and Fiji at the RWC would be enough.

The PI team should never take the park in a world cup. If the home nations all went through a ten year period of being utterly terrible and getting flogged would be argue we should forsake those nations Rugby histories and force them to compete at the world cup as the British Lions? I don't think so.

 

[ozbash]

The PI team should never take the park in a world cup

they do tho, they,re called the All Blacks and soon , The Wallabies

a combined PI team would have a fraction of the base teams from South Africa, Australia and NZ would have. the population left in the islands is very small compared to us.

thats a handicap in itself and combining the islands would give them a better base to select from.

a lot of last years PI team were from NZ, dont know about from oz-samo ?

these island boys arnt playing in nz and/or oz to develope island footy, its for the dollars and in the hope they get picked for the AB,s or Wallabies, eg sione lauaki.

i reckon SANZAR/IRB should double the eligability period for these guys before they can play for another country.
if they are going to be forced into anything, it should be loyalty.

The PI team could do more for improving island footy by being there than by not.

 

[meltiger]

The PI team should never take the park in a world cup

they do tho, they,re called the All Blacks and soon , The Wallabies

LOL! You said that not me ... ;-)

a combined PI team would have a fraction of the base teams from South Africa, Australia and NZ would have. the population left in the islands is very small compared to us.

thats a handicap in itself and combining the islands would give them a better base to select from.

a lot of last years PI team were from NZ, dont know about from oz-samo ?

these island boys arnt playing in nz and/or oz to develope island footy, its for the dollars and in the hope they get picked for the AB,s or Wallabies, eg sione lauaki.

i reckon SANZAR/IRB should double the eligability period for these guys before they can play for another country.
if they are going to be forced into anything, it should be loyalty.

The PI team could do more for improving island footy by being there than by not.

Mate, I'm not saying they (Pacific Islands team) shouldn't exist altogether, however we should allow them to compete as their own nations in the RWC. There are plenty of other teams who deserve to not be there than the teams from the Islands. Maybe if we expanded the Tri Nations and included the PI team, conditionally on them only selecting local players, whilst at the same time taking your suggestion and lengthen the waiting period to change loyalties to stop Australia and NZ plundering. In that situation, you would have regular top level football for the local players with the PI side on one hand, and on the other, those who choose to play S14 are pretty much forced to play with their birth nation in the RWC.

At the end of the day. I just think that it would totally detract from the RWC and be a big disrespect to those three proud nations to force them to compete as a generic team.

So long as they qualify, why shouldn't they have the right to compete as other truely crap nations do?

Who would you rather see the Blacks play? Tonga, or Romania?

 

[ozbash]

yea, you are probably right about forcing them.
but
my argument is the games last weekend where the AB,s totally demoralised the fijians and the Wallabies thrashed the Samoans.
for me, that does more harm than any good to island footy.
no wonder they want to play for NZ or Australia.

i go the other way with the world cup, the stronger the better.
i think it should at least be tiered or seeded with 2, maybe 3, grades.

wouldnt be surprised to seea maori team in it in the not too distant future, like the league w/cup.

 

[Woods99]

yea, you are probably right about forcing them.
but
my argument is the games last weekend where the AB,s totally demoralised the fijians and the Wallabies thrashed the Samoans.
for me, that does more harm than any good to island footy.
no wonder they want to play for NZ or Australia.

i go the other way with the world cup, the stronger the better.
i think it should at least be tiered or seeded with 2, maybe 3, grades.

wouldnt be surprised to seea maori team in it in the not too distant future, like the league w/cup.

There are two very simple issues here. Firstly, money. Island boys have very few employment opportunities at home (I speak from first-hand experience in Tonga). Playing professional rugby, either code, is an important aspiration for them.

For Tongan kids, if they could combine a professional career with emigration to New Zealand, that is just about 100% for them.

Again, from the Tongan perspective, I think that the economy was much stronger in years gone by, because of copra, and other factors, so there was less motivation to emigrate (either permanently or temporarily).......remember that Tonga actually beat the Wallabies in 1973.

I would guess that similar factors apply in Samoa and Fiji.

The second simple issue is that there is actually not much love lost between the island nations. The local derbies can be pretty fierce affairs. One problem with West Indies cricket is that it is inherently unstable, as we see from their unsteady course over the last few years. The same instability would apply to a combined islander set-up, except for occasional special events. There would be a huge amount of politicking and in-fighting, if there were to be a permanent merger of some kind.

 

[ThrashViking]

& We all know how well the Maori team (aka NZ A) playing in the world cup went down in 2000 dont we.
WORST.IDEA.EVER.

 

[Timbo]

Also, everyone here keeps saying they should play their home games in Sydney or Aukland....

Ok so they don't have excellent facilities in the PI's BUT they NEED to have regular HOME games to help public interest.