Marty Taupau defects Kiwis for Samoa

[Burns]

Huge news. Who else could join Samoa? What a disaster for New Zealand, but great boost for Samoa!

 

[Clarkent]

Absolutely love this! Like I said before when everyone gets paid equally watch all the island heritage players go back to the islands

 

[Shoulder Charge]

wow That’s huge! I’ve always said it would take either Marty or RTS to get something rolling for Toa Samoa!

 

[Clarkent]

wow That’s huge! I’ve always said it would take either Marty or RTS to get something rolling for Toa Samoa!

Watch this when all the top players go back to the islands the Samoa vs Tonga rivalry is gonna overtake origin

 

[Pommy]

Absolutely love this! Like I said before when everyone gets paid equally watch all the island heritage players go back to the islands

Go back? He’s from Auckland lol.

 

[Clarkent]

Go back? He’s from Auckland lol.

He played for Samoa first before playing for the kiwis hence why I said he's going back

 

[Panther_Daz]

Hopefully Papalii does the same after Origin.

 

[Mixmasterreece]

This is all becoming a bit laughable now.

I'm guessing we'll see a flood of kiwis shifting across now.

 

[Shoulder Charge]

This is all becoming a bit laughable now.

I'm guessing we'll see a flood of kiwis shifting across now.

Does it matter if they had played for there nation of heritage first before the kiwis JT, Taupau etc

The timing once again isn’t the best but it’s exciting to see where the international game can go from here.

 

[Clarkent]

Does it matter if they had played for there nation of heritage first before the kiwis JT, Taupau etc

The timing once again isn’t the best but it’s exciting to see where the international game can go from here.

Exactly the old days of just 3 teams competing every year is boring asf... Now you've got 5 or 6 teams now that's can compete and create more competition

 

[Springs09]

This is all becoming a bit laughable now.

I'm guessing we'll see a flood of kiwis shifting across now.

Why? Because you say so?

 

[adamkungl]

Exactly the old days of just 3 teams competing every year is boring asf... Now you've got 5 or 6 teams now that's can compete and create more competition

Or you've got Australia and England at the top

then Fiji and PNG

and then New Zealand A, B ,C and D teams under them

 

[Clarkent]

Or you've got Australia and England at the top

then Fiji and PNG

and then New Zealand A, B ,C and D teams under them

Can't be mad at that

 

[Mixmasterreece]

It's going to be interesting to see if theres any long term negative effects from this. In the short term, if the samoans defect as well, this will hurt NZ rugby league.

You'd have to think that the NZRL would be a little gun shy spending money developing Kiwi kids of pacific island heritage, at the very least youd think there would be a bias towards Maori and Pakeha kids.

It's not like the island teams are going to develop these kids in the island themselves (they dont have the money) so there might be some unintended consequences out of this.

 

[adamkungl]

Really though, while this is great for the islands and for the competitiveness of the sport, the Kiwis really need to put some f**king pride in their shirt and stop this for their own sake.

Kidwell's reign as coach was a disaster for them and they are still feeling the effects.

 

[Mixmasterreece]

Why? Because you say so?

Lol, yeah I'm sure if 20 odd players walked out of origin game 2 tomorrow you'd be heartened.

 

[Springs09]

Lol, yeah I'm sure if 20 odd players walked out of origin game 2 tomorrow you'd be heartened.

Yeah right because 20 odd players have just quit the international game altogether haven't they?

 

[VirgilTracy]

It would help the international game immensely if Origin didn't conflict through the requirement of being eligible to play for Australia. Would there seriously be a problem if Andrew Fifita played for NSW at the same time as Tonga? We're not talking about changing any other eligibility rules like allowing born and bred Kiwis/Brits into Origin..

Thanks to high profile Tongans and Samoans, we've got a window of opportunity to bake in international RL on a serious level outside of England. Aus and NZ. If the game misses the boat due to Origin taking precedence we'll be kicking ourselves in a few years time.

Its hard to be too critical of Tapau or some of the others. When they started, playing for Tonga/Samoa was no more serious than playing for Qld Country or something. Moving forward we need to stop Origin being a block, but Tonga/Samoa will have to be play by the same rules as NZ and Aus - once you've played for one you cannot switch. That will force players to make a call early and not leave NZ exposed in the same way.

 

[Clarkent]

It would help the international game immensely if Origin didn't conflict through the requirement of being eligible to play for Australia. Would there seriously be a problem if Andrew Fifita played for NSW at the same time as Tonga? We're not talking about changing any other eligibility rules like allowing born and bred Kiwis/Brits into Origin..

Thanks to high profile Tongans and Samoans, we've got a window of opportunity to bake in international RL on a serious level outside of England. Aus and NZ. If the game misses the boat due to Origin taking precedence we'll be kicking ourselves in a few years time.

Its hard to be too critical of Tapau or some of the others. When they started, playing for Tonga/Samoa was no more serious than playing for Qld Country or something. Moving forward we need to stop Origin being a block, but Tonga/Samoa will have to be play by the same rules as NZ and Aus - once you've played for one you cannot switch. That will force players to make a call early and not leave NZ exposed in the same way.

Origin does allow island players to play for them... Only reason Fifita doesn't play origin anymore is because it clashes with international rugby games... I guess the only downhill is Australia will have to be there first choice.... Milford played for Samoa last year and then a week later he was on the bench for SOO the next week... But I do agree SOO is killing the international game cause they take all the limelight away from the international game

 

[hutch]

It would help the international game immensely if Origin didn't conflict through the requirement of being eligible to play for Australia. Would there seriously be a problem if Andrew Fifita played for NSW at the same time as Tonga? We're not talking about changing any other eligibility rules like allowing born and bred Kiwis/Brits into Origin..

Thanks to high profile Tongans and Samoans, we've got a window of opportunity to bake in international RL on a serious level outside of England. Aus and NZ. If the game misses the boat due to Origin taking precedence we'll be kicking ourselves in a few years time.

Its hard to be too critical of Tapau or some of the others. When they started, playing for Tonga/Samoa was no more serious than playing for Qld Country or something. Moving forward we need to stop Origin being a block, but Tonga/Samoa will have to be play by the same rules as NZ and Aus - once you've played for one you cannot switch. That will force players to make a call early and not leave NZ exposed in the same way.

Fifita can play for Tonga and nsw.
There should (& one day will be) 3 stand alone mid year rep weekends for all nations and not just Australian origin players.