A joint partnership between World Rugby, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga has been unveiled today to create opportunities for Pacific Island Rugby players in securing semi-professional and professional contracts in Super Rugby, Mitre 10 and the National Rugby Championship.
This opportunity will also allow Pacific Island players to come back and play for their island nations when their service is required.
World Rugby General Manager High-Performance Peter Horne says that they have selected 30 players from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa after the Pacific Challenge competition and will work with them for the next five days.
Horne says this broader Pacific Islands strategy is about trying to improve some of the challenges that emerging players face, the regulations associated to the game, competition opportunity and working with future education opportunities for players.
Leading the Project Combine, Scott Wiseman says this program is unlike most other camps where they are team based. It is a game based combine program where they can see the skills that players have in each area of the game.
Pacific Rugby Players Association CEO Aayden Clarke has acknowledged the fantastic opportunity that probably did not exist before.
Clarke says that elite players from the Pacific will have high-performance opportunities and better life opportunities for them and their families.
FRU CEO John O’Connor says they are grateful that this is the first time that World Rugby has thought of this combine concept which gives opportunity to players to further their rugby career under contracts and also gives the island nations a lot of confidence because players are already capped and will always be eligible to play for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
About 14 Fiji Warriors players were selected to this program.
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