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The Pacific culture places great emphasis on hospitality, especially to guests from outside.
This same respect is still paid today in many Pacific countries. Ask anybody who has travelled to the Pacific Islands, and they will tell you of the great hospitality shown there.
When outsiders visit Pacific shores, the locals go out of their way to host their foreign guests. They gather the very best of their produce to ensure their guests are fed well. They spend all night fishing the Pacific Ocean in a bid to give their guests a taste of the exotic seafood which the Pacific is renowned for.
And while you sit and dine, they entertain you with Pacific humour, through dancing and singing of the beautiful tunes of the Pacific under the radiant moonlight, at little to no extra cost.
In the end, you are treated to hospitality reserved for royalty at a price which is paltry in equivalent. This, from countries which have very little.
Yet in spite of the eagerness of Pacific countries to go out of their way to host those from afar, the same can’t be said about the Tier 1 nations’ treatment in return – in rugby terms. The Samoan rugby team, in their recent Test match against England, received a paltry two per cent from the 2.5million euros of the ticket sales of a sell-out Twickenham crowd. Sadly, those in the Tier 1 category are all about looking after number one.
The New Zealand Rugby Union, through constant pressure from the media and social media, responded to calls for the All Blacks to travel to the Pacific by playing their first ever Test match there.
Kudos to the New Zealand Rugby Union, but what about the ARU, the RFU, the SARU and the FRU? And what about travelling to Fiji and Tonga?
The thing is, when the Pacific tour, they do so without any expectation of a significant windfall.
They travel all the way to the Northern Hemisphere to play in temperatures close to zero degrees, with little expectation of any incentive than for the pride of wearing the red of Tonga, the white of Fiji and the blue of Samoa.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying that the New Zealand, Australian, English, French and South African (to name a few) rugby players do not play for the jersey. What I’m implying is that professional rugby, being the business that it is in modern times, is a tad too serious.
But there is more to life than money and profit, as all companies must at some stage show some goodwill.
The Tier 1 nations (especially those ranked in the top six in the world) may need to relax such business mentality every now and then. In the nature of how the Pacific hosts it guests, they need to pull out the exotic fishes, reap the finest produce of the land and to bring out the ukulele when the Pacific tour.
This Test match in Apia between Manu Samoa and the All Blacks may be the first by the genuine super powers of world rugby, but it may also be the last.
Calls for the super powers to tour the Pacific will continue to fall on deaf ears. But when the Pacific, as well as other Tier 2 nations tour the Tier 1 nations, the least the Tier 1 nations could do is show some sense of hospitality, and give them a decent return on their day’s work.
The Pacific nations give all from nothing. Sounds lame when you give nothing from everything doesn’t it?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.