The President of the Oceania Rugby Unions (formally the Federation of Oceania Rugby Unions), Lefau Harry Schuster, believes the Manu Samoa needs a team of locals – now.
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He said Samoan rugby needed to focus on early development to be successful at the next Rugby World Cup.
“We need an approach where a team is selected and developed,” he said. “You need to basically pick now. We’re four years out, we need to pick at this point the players we’re going to develop for the next Rugby World Cup.”
The Manu Samoa had the most foreign-born players at the Rugby World Cup, with 13. These players are eligible through one or both of their parents being Samoan citizens.
Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Lefau believes the reliance on foreign-based players is not good for the Manu Samoa team.
“Most of the players in the Manu Samoa are from other countries. They are very talented on paper, but the drawback is all these players are playing in different environments, just about every World Cup.
“It hasn’t produced the most consistent performances for us.
“It doesn’t matter how talented our athletes are, when you play all over the world, you’re playing all types of rugby. It doesn’t help produce a consistent style, you have your own style, it’s not conducive,” he said.
“Your plans can feature international-playing Samoans but we can’t go from Rugby World Cup and tour to tour picking so and so from here and there. You’re not developing a team you’re just picking a team, we need to develop a team instead of plucking from all over the place,” he said.
“The biggest handicap we have is financial resources. In terms of talent we have a lot of talent both on island and off island and we just have to keep our heads down and keep moving forward.
“We will get there. You have to look at the players and see if they suit what you are going to do.”
He recommended more local development to improve the Manu Samoa.
“We have to look at our local development from school rugby up to provisional competition - we need to really analyse if our local competition is efficient.
“We need to look [at] if we are producing the best local environment. At the end of the day our core team should be from local competitions.
Training and competitions here should have them well prepared to internationally compete,” he said.
When asked by the Samoa Observer on his thoughts on the Samoa vs. Scotland game he said Samoa played well.
“They played close to their potential and that was what I saw was missing from our other games. I don’t know why they weren’t able to produce that calibre in their previous games.”
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