Lakapi Samoa is disappointed that the Oceania 7s rugby tournament has been cancelled.
Chief executive Seumanu Douglas Ngau Chun told the Samoa Observer in Apia on Tuesday the cancellation will affect the Samoan national sevens teams’ preparation for World Rugby qualification series next year.
Ngau Chun said both the Manu Samoa 7s and Manusina 7s teams were training in Apia for the Rotorua event, initially scheduled for October 31 and November 1.
Oceania Rugby cancelled the event last Friday, pointing to lack of funding as the main reason for the decision.
“Both teams had already started training and were preparing for the tournament when we were informed of its cancellation,” Ngau Chun told the Samoa Observer.
“It is disappointing for our players, as the tournament would have given them much needed game time against international teams.
“The coaches will now revise their training plans while we look for other matches or tournaments for both teams.”
Both teams are overseen by Lakapi Samoa, which remains listed as Samoa’s member union by World Rugby despite its ongoing dispute with the government and the government’s recognition of a new union.
The event was scheduled for 31 October to 1 November in Rotorua, but Oceania Rugby announced its cancellation last week, two weeks after it had initially announced that the event was being hosted in Rotorua by Bay of Plenty Rugby, in association with New Zealand Rugby.
Oceania Rugby general manager Frank Puletua said in the statement they could not secure funding for the event.
That is despite having 12 months to prepare for the event, as the Oceania 7s is an annual event on the calendar of the regional rugby body.
RNZ Pacific reached out to Puletua today to find out why the organisation had failed to gather funding support when they have had the last 12 months to do that.
Puletua acknowledged in his statement last week that all the other stakeholders such as World Rugby had made its commitments in full, with only Oceania Rugby being unable to live up to its side of the bargain.
Miss out
The event was to have featured eight teams in the Men’s Cup – Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Niue.
Five of those unions, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Niue, were also going to compete for Oceania’s SVNS 3 qualification places.
The women’s competition had lined up two sections, the Oceania 7s Women’s Cup, doubling as the SVNS 3 qualifier, featuring Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue and Solomon Islands, while a six-team International Women’s Invitational would have featured Fiji, New Zealand and Australia together with France, Japan and the United States.
The cancellation now means the teams that need to qualify for the SVNS 3 competition will have to find another way of doing that.
Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue and Solomon Islands will also need to qualify for the 2028 Olympic Games, through the Oceania event.
That process will be decided at next year’s Oceania 7s, which Puletua and Oceania Rugby are hoping can be staged in Rotorua.
Meanwhile, the Tonga Rugby Union also confirmed today that its two teams, for men and women, were also in training for the Oceania 7s when it was cancelled.
