Fiji will host Junior ABs in Pacific Nations Cup

Dare I say that with RL planing to play an annual Oceania Cup .... the RL Oceania Cup may have something to do with this. I am recently back from Fiji and had a number of chats about sport, this is how the locals summed their local likes to me. 1...... Rugby 7's ... 2.......Rugby 15's ... 3.......NRL ... why because they said rugby 7's and RL players can inter change. 4......Football But no clear winner and by local demand one NRL game is played on Fiji 1 TV each weekend. But they made it clear rugby 7's & 15's where two totally different games and they liked the 7's better. Football was more popular in Ba & Lautoka ... every park ground I saw had duel post on them you know the Football goals with the rugby up rights on top. In Suva & Sigatoka rugby was number one. All sport was popular through.

Westy, I come from Fiji. Born, raised and worked as a journo there. The massive hypocrisy the IRB showed in making this decision is, unfortunately, nothing new. Anyone who believes sport and politics don't mix would largely be too young to remember the Gleneagles agreement. In those days, anyone who argued the two should not mix were immediately branded as apartheid apologists. Fact is, sporting boycotts are an effective way of punishing an illegal regime without direct economic consequences for the population. I was witness to the very abortive attempts to bring Hawaii into the Pacific 3Ns in the early 90s. Hawaii should be allowed to host such an event.

Hemjay your point about the current political situation in Fiji is very relevant. This is a sports opinion site and i offer no opinion about Fijian politics of which I am ill informed. But for the IRB to put the tournament in Fiji whilst Australia / New Zealand and United Kingdom and india currently review Commonwealth membership and cultural links and governmental ties is obviously a ringing endorsement by the IRB of the current Fijian government and its policies or just plain gross ignorance. You may select either option.

Hemjay, Longest bow in history to claim that they are worried about the A team maybe losing to the islanders. There is no reason other than fincancial. The ARU was heamorraging cash and basically had to pull anything that wasn't making money, regardless of the long term interest of both the Australian game and the islands. I would like to see how much they were getting from the IRB too. I bet it wasn't that much. I also seriously doubt that a loss to Tonga 30 odd years ago still haunts the administrators making decisions about the game today.... If i didn't know better I would have thought you put that out there just to see who might bite! I do however think it is a ridiculous decision to put out of the PNC. It is a great comp and a great stepping stone. Hopefully we get back involved before too long.

I agree with all who have written that the pulling of the Aus A side makes no sense. We all know that Aus A is weaker than the JABs. So if it's worthwhile enough for NZ to compete, then certainly it is worthwhile for Aus to take part. If anything the logic should go the other way around: that the rugby is closer in standard to Aus A, and therefore they compete but NZ A doesn't. Sure, there's a "helping the Islands" elements to NZ playing, but it's also been 100% evident from statements by Steve Tew and the NZRU that the JABs are competing not just as a goodwill gesture: participation is seen as a way of developing the tier of players below the ABs, not to mention keeping them match fit in case they get called up to the big boys in the event of injuries. The same applies even more so to Aus A. And let's not forget that Pacific Island communities contribute hugely to Australian rugby these days (the Brumbies bench the other night was so Polynesian it would have made an Auckland side look like white). So Australian rugby also has a huge duty to put something back into the PIs. Finally, the PNC is bankrolled by the IRB. I don't know how much the NZRU and ARU are granted to participate, but I'd be very confident that they are not having to bear anything like full costs. So I'm not sure the money argument for not participating stacks up either.

Bill you are most probably right.

Jerry, I never said they would lose. That is a suggestion you are putting on the table. I said are they worried about the potential to lose to their Pacific counterparts there is a big difference to saying they will lose and that they could potentially lose. Lets face the facts here every single team who plays the Islanders have the potential to lose. What I was trying to ascertain is some reasons other than financial as to why they aren't going to compete and throwing some ideas up there. Do remeber that Australia has lost to Tonga in a test match before as have the French while a few years back it stll has happened.

Regardless, even if they lost to NZ A, based on last year's form they wouldn't be worried about losing to their Island counterparts as you'd suggested.

Jerry, I would have to take caution to that though. While the NZ Maori are a very good team it is not NZ A. Had we entered a NZ A last year the Australians wouldn't have come so close to winning the competition. This is just my opinion nothing more.

Hemjay - I don't think they're worried about not competing well. Last years competition was decided by a last minute kick at goal from the NZ Maori in the match against Aus A.

How much did the ARU actually save by pulling out of the PNC?!? I bet it was not a significant amount when compared to the good will fostered by playing in the comp and the experience gained by fringe Wallaby players.

Its really hard to determine what the ARU really wants as they keep sending so many mixed messages. They want an extra team to create depth then they want to stack it full of foreigners, then they only want 3 per team. You can just about Guarantee that all three per team will be automatic selections in their res[ective sides thus taking the spots of 15 Australians. Who knows if they do really have an agenda to skim the second stringers from SA and NZ, or take the talent from the Islands if you ask me there is already enough Pacific Islanders born in or raised in Australia that are already available. Of all of this I have to question the real reasons why there is no Australia A in this competition this year. I am not so sure its purely a financial call. Could it be that Australias second stringers are quite simply put not good enough and this year alone could face potential embarassment losing to their Island counterparts. NZ deserves more credit in the development of Pacific rugby as NZ every year sends a very copmpetitive team and gives the Island players something to aspire to a level of play that is just that next step above. In conclusion I am still in two minds on Australias stance, they don't have the resources so fair enough to not enter, then again as they have said maybe they really do have financial issues. Fijians can be proud to host the tournament and its a sunny spot in an otherwise blighted country. However it does bring into question why when the world is condeming Fiji the IRB is handing them money and sending players to an unstable country. There are those who believe Politics don't belong in sports however by ignoring the fact are we just added fuel to the fire and pretending the issues don't exist?

Sam - the ARU are only looking after their own backyard and trying to build their player depth - they're not interested at all in helping the Pacific Islands .... the 3 foreigners rule brought in this year - 1 marquee and 2 yet to be internationally restricted was a blatant attempt at trying to siphon off players .... any islanders / second tier kiwis or SA players brought in for the 5th team will be the same - the long term view is to have them available for Wallaby selection ... the PNC is a fantastic competition - loved watching it last year on Fox on Sat arvo and the ARU have really missed the boat in not maintaining an interest

Valid question Steve, there are also more Pacific islanders emerging through the ranks of club and junior rugby in Australia and filtering through to Super 14 and the Wallabies but no public support from the ARU to including the Pacific Islands in any SANZAR expansion. There is such a concerted push for Argentina's inclusion into an expanded SANZAR competition but none of the Pacific Island nations were even invited to submit a proposal. Matt Carroll has publicly stated that one of the areas the ARU will look to for recruiting players for a 15th team will be the Pacific Islanders playing in Europe as well as locally. They're content to use Pacific Islanders to help develop an additional team but not prepared to go to the same extent to help develop island rugby. The NZRU and IRB are also at fault in this regard.

How can the ARU talk about developing rugby in these areas and then pull the Aus A team from this comp to save money?