Islands put aside old rivalries to form single touring team

Fiji, Samoa and Tonga agreed yesterday to put aside decades of fierce island rivalry and form a combined side to tour leading nations, starting next year.

The acting Fijian Rugby Union chief executive, Bob Challenor, said in Wellington: "Everybody came to the meeting with a very positive attitude and we have made tremendous progress.

"The key in achieving this has been a good schedule of matches."

Under the International Rugby Board touring schedule, Fiji are due to host the All Blacks next year, South Africa owe a match to Samoa, and Tonga are due to host Australia.

Given the time constraints in the Sanzar schedule, Challenor said it was likely the combined team would have to accept playing the fixtures in Australia and New Zealand to overcome the tight July-August test programme in the Southern Hemisphere.

"That is clearly no problem for us and we hope no problem for Sanzar," Challenor said.

The meeting included an extensive review of the corporate structure of the new British Lions company in which the four home unions are equal stakeholders.

It was agreed the islands would model their set-up on the Lions.

A coach - to be appointed by a board - would be supported by the national coaches of the individual unions.

"The meeting agreed that the key to making this a success was not quotas [of players from each union], but picking a team who were going to play the best attacking rugby in the world and at least give a damn good game, if not actually pick up a few scalps," Challenor said.

The three unions will meet representatives from England in Auckland today to discuss the England tour of the South Pacific next year. A request for an extra match from England was added to the agenda.

"We would like to be able to get England's agreement to play an additional match in New Zealand against the Pacific Islanders as the first test match for this new team," Challenor said.

"The RFU [Rugby Football Union] is the home of rugby, as far as we in the Pacific are concerned. It would be a wonderful omen for the islanders if we could have this blessed by the country that gave us rugby in the first place."

- NZPA