Samoa's Alesana Tuilagi has placed his mouth guard, at the centre of a Rugby World Cup controversy, up for auction.
Photo / Greg Bowker
Samoa's Alesana Tuilagi has placed his mouth guard, at the centre of a Rugby World Cup controversy, up for auction.
Photo / Greg Bowker
The mouth guard at the centre of the Rugby World Cup controversy over branding could be all yours.
Manu Samoa centre Alesana Tuilagi, and his younger brother Manu, who plays for England, were each fined $10,000 for wearing the OPRA-branded mouth guards, breaching the event's terms of participation.
Alesana Tuilagihas placed the offending mouth guard, as well as the shoes he wore in the match against Fiji, on Trade Me to raise money for the development of professional boxing in Samoa.
Samoa boxing promoter Pa'u Fereti Puni, was watching the news and having dinner with the Tuilagi family on Tuesday evening, when he came up with the idea of approaching Tuilagi.
"Boxing is the poor cousin of rugby in the Pacific, yet like rugby, the Pacific has so much talent but lacks the resources to participate in the much needed international tournaments," he said. "You should see the boxing ring we train in and use for weekly tournaments; the floor is concrete with light padding. Just make sure you remain standing at the end of each round."
Mr Puni hopes to raise $6000 to pay to get two Samoan boxers and their trainers to New Zealand for a tournament in Auckland next Friday.
"For the rest of this year, it's close to impossible to get any sponsorship in Samoa. Just about every spare sene (cent) was donated towards the Manu Samoa in order to participate in the rugby world cup."
Teammate Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu drew attention to Tuilagi's fine for were the branded mouth guard, with a public Twitter message condeming the IRB's decision.
