Pacific Islands Rugby

Rugby Union owes a massive debt to the Pacific Islands. There’s something about these tiny nations that seems to churn out world class rugby players at an unbelievable rate. And it’s a talent pool that the rest of the rugby world has benefitted from, with players of Island descent representing practically every top test nation in the world to varying degrees.

The politics of this is awkward and prickly to say the least, but at a bare minimum you have to admit that for the contribution the Pacific Isles have made to global rugby, the fact that tier one test nations rarely visit to play games there seems more than a little unfair. Thankfully, that’s about to change. As part of their Rugby Championship warm up, the mighty All Blacks will take on Manu Samoa in Apia on 8 July, the first time in the World Champions’ history that they’ll play a full test match on Samoan soil.

As we’ve mentioned previously, Samoan rugby has been in turmoil off the field in the last year or so, but there’s real hope this historic moment will mark a turning point in Manu Samoa’s fortunes, and will kick off a trend of Tier 1 nations visiting the Islands on a regular basis, and giving back to a region that has contributed so much to the game.