Rugby: Moana Pasifika and Chiefs pre-season match raises more than $25,000 for Tongan relief efforts

Solomone Kata in action for Moana Pasifika against the Chiefs during their pre-season clash. Photo / Photosport

A fundraising drive during Moana Pasifika's Super Rugby debut raised more than $25,000 towards relief efforts in Tonga, after the island nation was devastated by a tsunami last month.

Several members of the Moana Pasifika team were affected by the natural disaster, with many having friends and family back in Tonga. It had been a motivating factor for the side leading into their pre-season clash against the Chiefs on Friday night, with coach Aaron Mauger saying earlier in the week that the team carried those impacted in their hearts.

While fans were not allowed to attend the match at Mt Smart Stadium due to Covid-19 restrictions, prompts were shown throughout the broadcast with the website viewers could visit or a number they could message to donate towards the cause.

"I'm really proud of our community for supporting such a special thing for us," Moana Pasifika and former Wallabies first five-eighth Christian Leali'ifano said.

"Obviously with the tsunami and the pandemic, our loved ones over there aren't doing so well. It makes us appreciate what we have here so anything we can give to help support them and get them a little bit of positive light is going to hopefully go a long way.

"They're a nation full of faith and family, and we're similar, so we're really proud that the community got behind it and hopefully they continue to get behind such an important cause."

The match itself was a rather stark introduction to Super Rugby for the side, as the Chiefs ran away 61-7 winners.

With both teams taking the opportunity to get a look at everyone available to them, both named squads of around 40 players for the game, contested over 90 minutes broken into three 30-minute periods.

For Moana Pasifika, it was their first opportunity to get some live reps against another team and showed the players what this level will be like. Unlike many teams, Moana Pasifika have several players who have never experienced Super Rugby level before, so the preseason shapes up as all the more important for them as they adjust to the next level.

"The two real big lessons for us were around the breakdown and winning our own set piece ball," Mauger said. "We couldn't really build any pressure. If we tighten those two things up and can build some pressure, you saw it towards the end there, we've got some young guys who have some talent out there. It's just a matter of doing all those little things right around the set piece and breakdown and we can do a bit more.

"I thought we showed some real substance on defence early on, which is a real positive for us. I thought we were hitting well. Again, I thought we could have put a bit more pressure on the ball; the Chiefs did that to good effect.

"We probably missed a few opportunities but that's just an intensity thing for a lot of our young guys. Now they know what the intensity is like, I think we'll be better for it next week."