KEY POINTS:
Piano mover Peter Fatialofa's life-long dream ended in 1988 when he was not named in Alex Wyllie's All Black squad. A couple of days later he ran into Joe Stanley at the airport.
"Where are you going?" Stanley asked the 120kg prop who had been integral in providing
a platform for Stanley and his fellow Auckland backs to dazzle since the mid-80s.
"I'm off to play for Samoa," Fatialofa responded.
"Have they got a team?" Stanley asked incredulously.
"I just said, 'watch this space, man'."
Three years later it was a space worth watching.
The second edition of the Rugby World Cup deserves to be remembered for one of the greatest backlines in the tournament's history - Farr-Jones, Lynagh, Horan, Little, Campese, Egerton and Roebuck - but the real stars of this World Cup were bundled out by Scotland in the quarterfinals on a windswept Murrayfield.
Samoa were the darlings of the World Cup unless, of course, you happened to be on the end of their tackling.
Tim Horan would later say that Samoa were their toughest opponents following the Wallabies 9-3 victory at sodden Pontypool during pool play. In that game the brilliantly named Apollo Perelini launched into the rugby consciousness with some rocket-propelled tackling, but Samoan rugby had officially taken off three days earlier when they shocked Wales at Cardiff Arms Park 16-13.
Nobody expected that.
Nobody except Fatialofa, coach Peter Schuster and technical adviser Bryan Williams, that is.
Since 1988 they had mapped their campaign and Wales and Argentina specifically were targeted. Samoa had lost to Wales twice previously - in 1986 when a young Michael Jones played for his homeland and '88 - but they noted weaknesses in the Welsh game that could be exploited.
Some 80 minutes later they had done it. Samoan rugby had arrived. The boys in blue revelled in the atmosphere on the park except one who made a beeline for the changing sheds.
"I was the first one off the field. I thought about staying and jumping around with the boys but instead I just ran straight off the field into the changing rooms and I think I was in there for a good five minutes by myself. I was sitting there thinking about the commitment I had made to this team, missing out on the All Blacks, and how Manu Samoa beating Wales had made it all worth it.
"At the same time I rang my wife and told her I thought we had it in us us to beat Wales. She said, 'Of course you did, I was bloody watching you'.
"When the boys came in you could sense the relief. It was like all the travelling to places like Russia over the past four years had been worth it."
The 1991 World Cup needed Manu Samoa, or Western Samoa as they were officially referred to. Back then the All Blacks were an ageing and not particularly likeable bunch, England were boring and France self- destructed in a graceless quarterfinal in Paris.
It was left to the new boys - Fiji and Tonga had played already in 1987 - to make a lasting impression.
About 20,000 fans packed into Apia's National Stadium to watch the Samoans, who launched names like Frank Bunce, Perelini, Sila Vaifale, To'o Vaega and Brian Lima on to the world. But even the most patriotic Samoan could have scarcely predicted the impact they would make, beating Wales and, following a narrow loss to Australia, setting their backs loose on the Argentinians.
"The first thing was we wanted to perform well but a few of us - myself, Peter Schuster and Bryan Williams - thought the quarterfinals could be in the pipeline," Fatialofa said. "We had an idea we could make it through to the quarters if we planned our campaign accordingly."
That single game against Wales crystallised the beauty and brawn of Polynesian rugby, qualities that have, ironically, eroded since the game went professional. Samoa made the quarterfinals again in 1995 but have not reached the knockout stages since, something that hurts 'Fats'.
"We're clawing our way back," said Fatialofa, who is in the islands now as an assistant to Manu Samoa coach Michael Jones. "Once they took us out of Super 10 our rugby took a big dive."
But Fatialofa tires of hearing from the young professionals who come back to play from Samoa with little enthusiasm because they're not being paid well enough. "Because I'm old-fashioned and they probably think I'm a dinosaur. I believe when you play for your country, in that window you put your country first and your family second.
"You've got to get your head out of the sand and look at reality. Every four years Samoa gets an opportunity to put their country on the map. In 1991 we took that opportunity."
As the cliche goes, with both hands.
