Rugby’s old white guys finish ‘hatchet job’ on islanders
World League exclusion means it’s now or never for players from Island nations to take a stand and boycott the Rugby World Cup.
The year 1995 felt a particularly marvellous time to be a Pacific Islander in New Zealand.
The Pasifika population was growing at a rate that meant there would be 40 per cent more of us in the country by the end of the decade and, at this midway point, was having a lovely impact on the country – to the point where New Zealand even seemed to own the fact that it too was a bunch of islands in the South Pacific.
In rugby, there was a tournament called the Super 10. The forerunner to the Super 12, 14, 15 and however many are now, this featured top teams from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and which-ever team won the Pacific tri-nations out of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. In the three years the tournament ran, Samoa featured twice and Tonga once.
This inclusion of Pacific nations seemed the natural progression from Fiji making the quarter-finals of the 1987 world cup and Samoa making the quarters in 1991.
In the 1995 Rugby World
Cup, a young former bank teller from South Auckland dragged the game towards the 21st century with an awesome display of power and athleticism that made even people from non-rugby parts of the world sit up and take notice.
The late great Jonah Lomu’s performance had everyone in New Zealand wishing they were Tongan, and it seemed that the world was waking up to the awesome power of Pacific Island rugby.
Then in August of that year, rugby went professional, which provided an economic pathway for players all around the world to make a living from the game, but also seemed to change the fortunes of the small Pacific nations.
There has been the odd upset over the past 24 years but professionalism seemed to signal the beginning of the end for Pacific countries being a force in between world cups.
When Sanzar – formed as a partnership between New Zealand, South Africa and Australia – created the Super 12, they left out the Pacific nations, and they’ve seemingly been left out ever since.
Now World Rugby’s proposal to leave them out of a proposed new World League competition has leading test players and smaller nations up in arms. World Rugby should really change their name to ‘‘Richer White Countries and Japan Rugby’’ because those are the only countries this proposed move serves.
I would like to think that New Zealand would go into bat for its fellow Pacific nations, as it has in the past in trying to change eligibility rules so that players who’ve represented tierone nations, can then represent a second-tier nation they have links to.
But New Zealand is the poorest of the richer white countries in the World Rugby boardroom, and when push comes to shove, it will put first its own financial imperatives and survival.
NZR Ceo Steve Tew told Stuff’s Marc Hinton that this proposal has no chance of being pushed through at World Rugby’s next meeting in March: ‘‘This current iteration wasn’t going to get the support of a number of nations, including New Zealand, so it’s not going to go very far.’’
So perhaps all this handwringing is for nothing – but Pacific rugby advocates have been waiting for years for their nations to get a fair suck of the sav and their mistrust is completely understandable.
If the older white guys who seem to run the game can push this through for the millions it will earn their countries, it will complete the inadvertent hatchet job on Pacific rugby that began in 1995.
No wonder, Pacific Island players are talking about boycotting this year’s Rugby World Cup.
In terms of making a stand, it’s now or never.
‘World Rugby should really change their name to ‘Richer White Countries and Japan Rugby’ because those are the only countries this proposed move serves.’