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Gianno Infantino vowed to make World Cups greener - 2030 shows he wasn't seriousare highly distinctive. Taleni Seu is a second-row forward who plays at regional level for the Waratahs in Australia, having previously played in Japan and in his native New Zealand. He stands an imposing 6ft 8ins, and when we meet after, he is wearing what to Anglicised eyes looks like a beach shirt, a skirt and a huge red necklace.
“Absolutely the system is weighted against us,” Seilala Mapusua, Samoa’s head coach and former London Irish, Highlanders and Samoa centre, tells. “We are expected to come to the pinnacle event of our sport and be competitive but this is on the back of two games against a tier one nation in the span of four years – and one of them [against Ireland] was on the eve of the World Cup.
Samoa’s emergence from a rugby outpost was felt memorably at the 1991 World Cup, when they beat Wales in Cardiff, but immediately there was plundering of resources by the All Blacks and rugby league, and players such as Theo McFarland at Saracens dotted round the world, and the initial surge has fallen away. England, for instance, have never played in Samoa.
“The rumoured ‘world league’ getting underway, matches vs T1 opposition will decrease for those not included rather than increase, stifling scope for improvement… Samoa had 12 Tests since last RWC. [They] need 30+ Tests and at least half need to be versus Tier 1 between World Cups to be competitive. Either that or our own on-island Super Rugby team, where we can build combos. Not this fob-off Moana [Pasifika] concept where top players are syphoned off to other NZ super clubs / the All Blacks.
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