BACK THEN : Rugby fanatics packed the Apia Park open grounds to cheer their Manu Samoa rugby heroes but that was sometime ago.
By Staff Writer
The proud 100 year birthday celebrations of rugby in Samoa last year is coming under a bad mauling at the alarming loss of appeal as a national sport.
The Manu Samoa in more recent outings is no longer swamping the Apia Park stadium with home supporters cheering madly for their rugby heroes.
Empty seats are giving the stadium a lonely, deserted look, far from the once screaming hordes of rugby fanatics, even at club level matches.
The despairing slump in national interest is the heaving, trampling, rugby maul, the Lakapi Samoa Union is trying to crawl out from under.
The revival effort underway to spark life back into the Apia Park stadium, is on the co-ordinating shoulders of recently appointed Lakapi Samoa CEO, Seumanu Douglas Ngau Chun.
He is fully aware of the big workload cut out for him and his management staff at the Tuana’imato Head Office.
“Our priority is to restore the interest in rugby to where it was before,” Seumanu tried to make it sound easy in what appeared to be an attempt to tone down the Mt. Everest climb ahead.
Out of the 18 sub-unions running rugby in Samoa only two were able to organise a playing season last year.
The dismal response serves as a measure of what is in store for the planned effort to fire up national interest.
Town based Apia and Faleata Rugby sub-unions were the only ones with playing seasons underway last year.
“The Faleata Rugby union was in a struggle though with the drop in registered teams – some went over to the Apia Union and others did not have enough players to field teams,” admitted the Lakapi Samoa CEO.
Seumanu openly confessed that the most alarming setback for rugby in the country is the loss of players to the seasonal labour scheme, RSE.
Even the urban based players are being snapped up by the scheme with the income benefits far from what rugby playing allowances offer.
“No way rugby can stand up to the RSE scheme where workers end up with either brand new family homes and one or two cars,” CEO Seumanu readily surrendered.
Rural village based rugby unions are the most adversely affected.
Seumanu gave as an early example the Siumu Rugby Union effort to still run a playing season but with teams registered from Falealili, Safata up to Lefaga.
“These are villages with enough rugby teams to run their own rugby unions until the labour scheme drain on players forced the few teams left to play their rugby at Siumu.”
Seumanu agreed there were other added issues to the loss of interest and is quite mindful of them in attempts to restore the popular appeal for rugby.
The Scotland and Tongan internationals lined up for July as well as the Pacific Nations Cup championship, are the main highlights for rugby this year.
A Manu Samoa tour of Europe in November is included as well.
Seumanu is eager to see the turnout for the Scotland and Tonga tests matches as a benchmark for the promotional effort to restore supporters rugby interest.
The primary goal for the Manu Samoa season is to qualify for the 2027 World Rugby Cup and to do that it will have to rank high at the end of the Pacific Nations Cup.
The success of the Manu Sina both in 7s and 15s last year at the regional and international is helping to win back the rugby fans attention as well.
Schools rugby is in the picture also with the running of the playing season in two terms and in selected team pools rather than zones.