Pacific nations hold little power when it comes to international rugby rules, and it shows in which countries their players represent.

James Nokise co-hosts the podcast Fair Game: Pacific Rugby Against the World on RNZ.

Around 60% (21 of 36) of the All Blacks squad for the 2022 Rugby championship were Pasifika; eight of them were born in either Tonga, Sāmoa or Fiji.

Imagine a player having a particularly good year in Super Rugby and being called up for the All Blacks. They play in a couple of tests, but can’t secure a role in the team and get dropped. That player might not be able to crack into one of the top for teams in the world, but what about the 14th? For around two decades, the eligibility rules for international rugby players meant that it was a “one or the other” scenario. “No take backs.”

In other words, play for the All Blacks once and you’re an All Black for life, even if you never play again. Since 2022, players can change countries but must wait a chill 36 months before representing another union.

In the current World Rugby men’s rankings, Sāmoa is 11th, Fiji is 14th, and Tonga is 15th … but of the top 10 teams, only South Africa and Argentina did not field Pacific eligible players.

“Why not just play for a Pacific team then?” In a word, money. Respectfully, the difference between playing for the All Blacks and playing for Tonga is about the same as playing for Hamilton Boys High School and playing for Wainuiomata High School; the raw talent may be similar, but there’s a big gap in resources.

At World Rugby Council, where the big decisions are made about the game, “tier one” teams (England, New Zealand, South Africa etc) each have three votes.  Sāmoa and Fiji have one vote each. Tonga has none.

So how do you get resources to smaller island nations, and / or change eligibility rules when you barely have a vote in World Rugby decision-making? Well, based on the above, some very skilful lobbying and something close to “mercy”, that we definitely won’t call “mercy” because pacific nations are proud and would never ask World Rugby for such. 

Again, looking to money, World Rugby talks about growing the game internationally because that also leads to increased revenue, but to do so also requires a growth in competition. One of the attractions of the Football World Cup (when it’s not being hosted by a controversial country) is that, while the same teams have ended up in the finals a few times, there have been occasional upsets that have led to fascinating semi-finals. When teams like Turkey, South Korea and Morocco are in the final four, football really does feel like a world game. So far this century, 14 different teams have appeared in the men’s Football World Cup semi-finals. For rugby, it’s only seven. 

Numerous Pacific players have been held back by their wealthy European and Japanese clubs from representing their national teams. Despite this practice being in direct contravention of World Rugby regulations, no official action has ever been taken.   

This is not actually meant to happen, but it does. Sometimes it’s blatant, but sometimes it’s the simple non-renewal of a contract once the tournament is done. The pressure is the same; choose country over club and risk your financial security. Why is that an issue? Because, as mentioned above, it stifles the  development of international teams as well as the country’s overall interest in the sport. Should clubs care? Probably not, especially the most corporate ones. Players are, after all, their human assets that they pay top dollar for. Read that how you will. 

Fans should most definitely care because the very short-term view of knee-capping national teams in the interest of International domestic competitions undermines the World Cup, which remains the flagship advertisement to non-rugby players around the world. Rugby, for all its popularity in some countries is, to others, a bizarre and brutally violent game. New Zealand is the only tier-one nation that claims rugby is its premiere sport, and if any club here, Super or otherwise, tried to withhold players from the All Blacks, there would be hell to pay.

Since RWC 2019, Sāmoa, currently ranked 11 in the world, has played no games against teams in the top 10. Their only game against Tier One opponents was Italy, currently ranked 12th.

To be fair to Italy, they did win that game against Sāmoa, but – and perhaps it is a biased “but” – that was not a full strength Sāmoan team, as not all the players could travel north due to both availability and finances. 

When the All Blacks beat Tonga by 100 points in 2021, the Tongan team had a week to prepare and fielded 13 debutants. Their captain, Sonatane Takulua, paid his own way from France to make the game. Sam Whitelock, the All Black captain, had more caps than the entire Tongan starting team. 

A question that often pops up around the Tonga match from casual observers is “Why didn’t the All Blacks reign it in?”. There’s a lot of love in New Zealand for Tongan sports fans, and the name Jonah Lomu is still spoken with awe. So why put 100 on Tonga. The simple answer is “because they had to”. The All Blacks only have so many tests before they take on the best of the best, and they needed to maintain their intensity. And it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because even the most die-hard AB fans felt the brutality of the inequality as the score closed in on a century. The mood went from a  chest thumping cry of  “this is what happens!”  to a helpless, spreading of the hands “..this is what happens.” 

Talking to Tongan players from that match, they never believed they would beat New Zealand. Never smelled an upset. They didn’t think they would lose by 100 points, but they knew a hiding was coming. With that in mind, Sonatane Takulua is a true captain. He paid his way back because the funds weren’t there to get him over, looked at his team too full of fresh faces, and led them into a thrashing.

75 Sāmoans have played for the All Blacks, but the ABs have played only one test match in Sāmoa, in 2015. The All Blacks won 25-16. They haven’t gone back. 

Ask the Highlanders what their least favourite game to play was last year, and there’s a fair chance they’ll say the Suva match against the Drua. Why? Because the hot and humid temperatures make Queensland feel like Wellington. Combine that with a stadium full of passionate fans and any competition for a non-Pacific team is going to be a certain kind of tough. 

The All Blacks match in Sāmoa was close. In fact it was Manu Sāmoa’s best performance ever against the All Blacks… and it took quite a large social campaign for it to happen. So why don’t the All Blacks do a mini-tour of the Pacific every now and then? Because, according to rugby rules, the home nation takes the funds from the gate and setting up appropriate broadcasting is more difficult than people realise. The broadcasting rights, in particular, dwarf gate takes in terms of finances, so without them it’s hard to make money on a tour.. for a tier one team at least. 

Again, this shouldn’t paint the AB’s as villains in any way. Instead, look at the result in Apia and understand that it is not the on-field competition that is the issue, as much as the off-field situations. To close the gaps between the haves and have-nots, to expand rugby into a truly world game, to make tournaments more than just the same teams in quarter finals each time, we need to look at what is happening at the executive level and ask, as fans, does this actually work?

James Nokise co-hosts the podcast Fair Game: Pacific Rugby Against the World on RNZ.