In its 36-year history, only once has a team from the Northern Hemisphere
won the World Cup, the 2003 English team. Quite an anomaly considering the game was invented by these fellas in the north as well as having arguably the best local club competitions in England and France. The guys in the North also boast the highest money-making competitions in the world with a lot of resources at their disposal…yet choked on the big stage.

​

After Pool Play the usual tier 2 countries were made to play World Cups under done. It was the Flying Fijians who ruined the Northern script by making it to the quarter-finals and almost pulled off one of the greatest upsets of World Cup history vs England going down by 6 points.  Samoa almost did the same thing to England a week prior in pool play losing by 1 point.  Just to put it into perspective; Samoa has played 13 games between this and the last world cup with 1 game vs a Tier 1 team (Ireland) which was a World Cup warm-up vs their B team.  Fiji has played 21 games between World Cups with 9 games vs Teir 1 teams. England has played 41 games with bar 2 games all have been against Tier 1 teams. Now you tell me where the fair playing field is. Just Imagine a world where Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa play at least 10 games a year vs Tier 1 teams between world cups with access to their best players every game.  Only then would we truly have a fair world cup where dare I say
the Colonisers would fear this happening as they would prefer to make Pacific Islanders citizens of their own countries.  If only Tonga and Samoa Rugby Unions would take a leaf out of Fiji’s umu and stop acting like FOB amateurs and start showing the same heart, passion, and professionalism as the players do.