Rugby: Other nations must follow ABs' lead

The All Blacks finally thrilled the locals at Apia Park but what about other nations? Photo / Mark Mitchell

Everyone wants to know when the All Blacks will be coming back to Samoa. It's a fair question - certainly deserves an answer - but is perhaps not the right one.

The right one to ask is when will England be coming? And what about Australia, South Africa and France?

New Zealand, of all the major rugby-playing nations, has the closest relationship with the Pacific Islands, particularly Samoa. And, given the contribution players of Samoan heritage have made to New Zealand rugby, the All Blacks had to come to Apia.

But New Zealand hardly stands alone in having a rugby relationship with the Island nations. The Pacific influence is global and England, Australia and France have quite readily, greedily and perhaps cynically taken plenty from the Islands.

Australia changed their eligibility rules a few years back to allow Super Rugby teams to sign one emerging player whose eligibility had not yet been captured.

It wasn't subtle and everyone could see it was a transparent mechanism by which they could entice top Pacific talent to Australia and lock them into the Wallabies.

The French national team, forever at war with their clubs and constantly worrying about the foreign invasion in the Top 14, haven't been so vocal about Clermont setting up an academy in Fiji.

Supposedly created to help identify and nurture players for the greater good of rugby in Fiji, the Clermont Academy is really a means by which the French club can secure the best players.

And once the likes of Noa Nakaitaci - the first taken to Clermont through the programme - have been in France for three years, they can play for the national team ... as he has done.

England haven't covered themselves in glory either when it comes to the Pacific. Manu Tuilagi was an illegal overstayer and facing deportation, until political intervention saw him granted amnesty. It's questionable whether the notoriously inflexible UK Immigration Department would have been inclined to sanction Tuilagi's residency had he not shown himself to be the answer to England's lack of punch in midfield.

England and Australia - France have played a test in Samoa - need to be the next Tier One nations to play in Apia.

"Of course, that's the hope for Samoan rugby," said Alesana Tuilagi, when asked about the prospect of playing younger brother Manu in Apia. "Now the All Blacks have played on Samoan soil, we hope that the other big countries like England, South Africa and Australia will come. That's the dream for us. As a player and as a small country, to bring those Tier One nations to play rugby here and to let Samoa develop."

What Samoa have shown in the last week is that they can do what everyone worried they couldn't and expertly host a big test. They did more than that - they delivered an experience that highlighted the routine, staged, staleness of tests in major nations.

The June test window has become a joyless process of Northern Hemisphere teams traipsing South with little enthusiasm or belief. They come, because they have to - because it's repayment for the All Blacks coming north in November.

The New Zealand public buy tickets - but that's again more out of obligation and a sense of national duty than any great enthusiasm. But because the revenue model of test rugby is still archaic - with the host union taking all the gate proceeds - the cycle is impossible to break.

That leaves the Island nations out of the picture in regard to being afforded regular tests against Tier One nations. There is no space in the calendar and just as significantly, unless there is agreement reached about a revenue model revamp, the top unions can't profit from a trip to the Islands.

But what became apparent last week was that test rugby can't always be about the sponsors, the revenue and the broadcasters. Profitability is not always the only tool by which success should be measured.

"At the end of the day this has been a huge success around the hosting," said Samoa's high performance director Alama Ieremia. "We all know there are busy schedules and commercial value but sometimes having test matches in the Pacific ... you can't actually put a money value on that.

"We have done a lot for World Rugby and we feel we have earned the right to have this test match here. It is great to be able to host people and invite them back again. Hopefully this a standpoint for moving forward and the performance on the field is another area [where we have proved ourselves]. Hopefully World Rugby does look at this and we can get some more big teams."

The British and Irish Lions have been looking into the prospect of 'stopping' somewhere on the way to New Zealand in 2017. It has become the norm for the Lions to get a game under their belts before they arrive in the host nation.

The United States tendered an invite - one that will unquestionably generate financial returns as well as driving interest in a country that has a growing rugby following.

A game in the Pacific Islands is also an option - one that will offer little in the way of cash for the Lions, but will win them an enormous amount of goodwill. It will be a huge acknowledgement of the importance of Pacific Island rugby to the future of the world game.

It's a stark choice and all too often it has been the money that has over ridden everything. But if the All Blacks visit proved anything, it was that test football needs to find more ways to break what can feel like a procession of formulaic, predictable encounters that become almost indistinguishable.

The Apia test was as refreshing as it was compelling. The Samoans hosted with no lack of charm or efficiency and Manu played with a passion and cohesion that confirmed that all they need to compete regularly with the best team in the world is more competition against the best teams in the world.

The All Blacks have, hopefully, started and not finished something. The Pacific Islands are not a box tick. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are a vibrant and critical part of the world rugby scene and no one - not England, Australia, France or Australia has a single valid reason not to follow the All Blacks to Apia.