Coach takes the blame

When Manu Samoa Head Coach Stephen Betham talks about the team’s return to Samoa on Wednesday night, he is overwhelmed with emotion.

During a press conference yesterday, he described the return as “a feeling that’s hollow inside”.

“[Just in] knowing that you went with the expectations of the country and that you let them down. We’re here to front. We’re here to blame.

Me, personally, I’m to blame.

That’s my role. When it goes good or goes bad, it’s all me.

And I take full responsibility for that. We’re not here to offer any excuses. We failed. It’s as simple as that!”

His Assistant, Namulauulu Alama Ieremia had a similar response.

“We were chasing a game before we actually had time to apply our game plan. I'll discipline, 17-4 penalty count.

And I think that was a defining moment for us as a campaign.”

Namulauulu said the players hurt because they knew they were better. As for the Scotland game, he said the main message was that it didn’t matter what the game plan was, just give yourself a chance.

“So you give yourself a chance by staying disciplined, holding on to the ball and then showing what you can actually do. The first 40 minutes against Japan, it’s coming to haunt us.

We’re the coaches. We’ll take it on the chin. We should’ve actually been better than that.

The preparation going into it was everything, yet we failed.”

They are both awaiting a review process which will highlight strengths and vulnerabilities of the Manu Samoa’s performance - and could also determine their future.

“We’re in charge of the players and were responsible for the performance at the end of the day. Yes, the players didn’t perform but it’s our job to make them perform,” said Namuulauulu.

There were plans in place and they stuck to them through the processes put forward by the coach. But unfortunately, said Betham, it didn’t come off.

“There are no excuses for the results. We believed in the processes that we put forward but at the end of the day it didn’t reflect that.”

On reflection, Betham is adamant that they made the right decisions and if he were to do it all again, nothing would change.

Asked why Joe Tekori left the World Cup early, Betham said he had broken team protocol and for his benefit, he voluntarily pulled out.

There were personal reasons and Tekori was now back playing at his club, he said.

“No one is bigger than the team.”

Alesana Tuilagi’s five-week suspension, which was quickly reduced to two weeks, triggered much discussion in the media and social networks about the bias given toward top tier teams. Betham agreed.

During the Pacific National Cup, management of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji rugby teams were warned that they would always be treated differently at the Rugby World Cup.

“You guys, if a Tier One [commits an offence], they’ll look at it, what’s the offence? If a Pacific Islander does it, it’s not the offence. It’s what colour of the card comes out. So straight away…when someone else does it, is it a card or is it not a card? If we do it, what colour is the card? Yellow or Red? And that was the description given to us.”

Despite this, Manu Samoa management urged the players to not use it as an excuse, but as a chance to prove that they could play well and not err.

The match against Japan killed the Manu Samoa team in the first 40 minutes, with two yellow cards. The team was left with 13 players for 17 minutes, who were left to play hard defence and were exhausted.

“So by the time the other two players come back in, although you’ve got your numbers back… the other two players, they had to work twice as hard, so now they’re pretty much exhausted.

By the time you reach the 60th [and] 70th minute, we’d had it.

“In the last 15 minutes, the boys didn’t have any legs to give because they had defended 40 on 13 for a long period of time. So instead of playing 100 percent, now you’ve got to play 120, 130 percent, just to wait for the others to come back in.

So I mean, you exhaust yourself and for us it gave in the 68th minute, that’s when we knew we couldn’t come back. We just saw it in the boys.”

As for the match against Scotland, there were a lot of niggling injuries. The captain was injured and ruled out.

Suspended players like Alesana Tuilaga and Faifili Levave were awaiting their pending trials.

Betham denied a fight had taken place amongst some of the players and proof of that was that Alafoti and Mauries played together in the last game.

“Those were rumours. There was nothing. All the players enjoyed one another’s company and they respected each other.”

Asked if he feels his position as Head Coach is in jeopardy, he admitted it was, and that he held himself responsible.

“We know we let the country down. We knew it straight after the Japan game. So when [media] asked why did I apologize? I apologized because I know the country was hurting and even the team were hurting. A day and a half…it’s like someone died. You try to talk to someone, you just got one word. So I was trying to pick them up, we’ve still got one game. If the boys were hurting like that, imagine what the country is feeling. When you hurt somebody, it’s only natural that you apologize. You have to.”

At the end of the review, Betham may quit as Head Coach, to make way for someone “who can make the calls better than me”.

“What has happened in this World Cup makes you reflect on you, yourself as a person.

Although I hold Manu Samoa dear to my heart…there is no excuse. The management and everyone did their best and at the end of the day, the outcome is a fail. That’s my responsibility. It comes with my job description.”