5. World Rugby doesn’t care about the Pacific Islands
Samoa embarrassed Wales in 1991 and scared the living daylights out of the other Home Unions in the process and they and the rest of the Pacific nations have been paying for it ever since, according to New Zealand Herald writer Gregor Paul.
The evidence is staggering.
Evidence list
- At the 1995 World Cup when many of the Samoan players came off the field after their quarter-final loss to South Africa with nasty bite marks. No one in authority wanted to know about that. No one wanted to investigate.
- In 2003, England played a pool game against Samoa where they had 16 players on the field for a minute. World Rugby fined them a paltry $20,000 and said the incident had no bearing on the game.
- In 2004, New Zealand took an eligibility proposal to World Rugby to allow players who had been capped by a Tier One nation to serve a one-year stand down and then play for a Tier Two nation. The Celts block voted to kill it.
- At the 2007 World Cup, the cash-strapped Tongan team who were staying in $80-a-night accommodation and borrowing kit from local rugby clubs, wanted to dye their hair green for their game against England to thank a sponsor for funding a pre-tournament training camp.
- At the 2011 World Cup, Samoan wing Alesana Tuilagi was fined $10,000 by World Rugby for wearing a branded mouth-guard. At the same tournament, England were found guilty of switching match balls during a game against Romania – an act of cheating and yet they were exonerated by World Rugby.
- The Fijians were ranked ninth in the world in 2019 and yet there was no plan to include them in the proposed World League for the top 12 nations in the game.
Is it true? I don’t think they actively go against the Pacific Nations intentionally, just always back up the big boys.