A peep into the future of Samoan rugby

By Vatapuia Maiava 26 September 2016, 12:00AM

Apia Park saw a heated competition on Saturday with a great test of rugby for our U18 boys.

With the visiting U18 Australian team, the match was expected to be a great display of skills and talent on both sides and it definitely delivered.

Smart plays, bone crushing tackles and pressure leading to some heated head clashes; both teams never gave in.

Australia won the day 50-10 concluding a close encounter and great day for rugby.

However for Manu Samoa Head Coach, Namulau'ulu Alama Ieremia, this match exposed some weak points that need looking into.

“Performance wise, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” he told the Sunday Samoan.

“There are some good players there and you can actually see it; the only critical thing there is getting alignment and how we can actually help our youngsters come through.

 “This is the future, the sooner we have those meetings to make sure we have those right channels and making sure what are the systems that are working and what we can look at.”

Coach Namulau’ulu explained that the Australian side was tough competition for our boys from the beginning.

“The game was pretty one sided wasn’t it,” he said.

“It’s hard to test ourselves against an Australian team; today they proved to be well drilled and there is a lot of work to do on our part.

“There are many areas that need improvement across the board. We need to work together as to how we are going to get the best out of our youngsters.

“If today is anything to go by, we need to work very soon and very quickly to get us to where we should be. We need to sort out our set pieces and the type of game we want to play.

“We also need to work on the simple basics such as catch and pass. I think that’s very important and we need to know how we can all work together.”

But nevertheless, Coach Namulau’ulu is positive that with a bit more work, our rugby future will be bright.

“It’s good to get a real guage; this is the first time I’ve seen an international (U18) here playing against us,” he said.

“There is a lot of work that needs to be done and I am sure decisions are going to be made further up the ladder on how we will make this work to get the best out of our future.”

By Vatapuia Maiava 26 September 2016, 12:00AM
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