Samoa Rugby Union fully supports the recently announced decision by World Rugby to cancel the remaining legs of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2020.
Chief Executive Officer Faleomavaega Vincent Fepulea’i said it’s the right call given the Global impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on global events.
“The high death toll in some of the host Countries such as UK, France and Asia poses a huge risk we cannot afford to have our players exposed to, given our Country’s small population,” he said.
Since the declaration of the State of Emergency by the government, Samoa Rugby Union has followed all lockdown conditions and worked closely with sub-unions to ensure everyone keeps within the parameters of SOE orders.
“Our Government has done a lot of precautionary measures to keep the Coronavirus away and SRU will continue to do our part to ensure we stay free of the deadly virus”.
On the domestic scene, the SRU hopes to restart national tournaments later this year should Samoa remain covid free.
“Sub unions have been given the chance to run shortened competitions before the start of the national tournaments.”
According to Faleomavaega, the SRU Board and Managenent will start the selection process for the head coaches of Manu Samoa XV and Manu Samoa 7’s soon.
Manu Samoa Sevens failed to win an HSBC leg during the four year tenure of Sir Gordon Tietchens. The last time Samoa 7s won an HSBC leg was in Paris 2016, coached by Danien McGrath and Brian Lima.
The Manu Samoa 15s have been to every Rugby World Cup since 1991. They have not made the quarter finals of the World Cup since the back to back efforts of 1991 and 1995. The most dismal performances being 2007 and 2015 where Samoa finished 4th in their pool.
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