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Setback for Samoa's World Cup preparations
By Online Editors
Samoa have suffered a massive setback ahead of the Rugby World Cup which begins in a little over eight months time with one of their key personnel walking away.
High-Performance General Manager Zane Hilton has resigned and the former Melbourne Rebels assistant coach's resignation is effective immediately.
Hilton joined Samoa in May 2018 and has aided the side’s journey during the World Cup qualification process.
Samoa certainly didn't have a straight-forward route to the tournament, having to qualify via a playoff. They beat Germany 108-43 on aggregate in their two-legged contest.
Samoa are in Pool A and begin their World Cup campaign on September 24th against Russia in Kumagaya City.
Samoa, who were World Cup quarter-finalists in 1991 and 1995, will also face Ireland, Scotland and Japan in Pool A.
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Watch: Rugby World Cup Japan city guide - Kumamoto
The 38-year-old has not explained why he's decided to walk away, saying: “While I know there will be disappointments, I want to thank SRU and Manu Samoa in particular, whom I’ve had the honour of working with over the last 12 months.
“I wish them all the best for the upcoming World Cup,”
In a statement, SRU CHief Executive Faleomavaega Vincent Fepulea’i revealed that Samoa and World Rugby is working in close partnership and are now in the process of reviewing the management needs of the programme and the World Cup campaign.
Last month Manu Samoa coach Steve Jackson said he wanted to use the HSBC World Seven Series to allow players to switch countries in time to qualify for the World Cup.
Players wanting to follow this route must compete in five tournaments on the current Sevens Series, which doubles as an Olympic qualifier, provided they have a passport for the second country and have completed a minimum three year stand-down period.
Jackson told Radio New Zealand “It’s always an avenue. I think Tim Nanai-Williams is probably one of the only people I know that has done that through that avenue, and it’s a difficult one because if you’re talking to guys in Europe they’ve got to be released.
“We’ve had some guys put their hands up and say that they’d be interested but we’ve got to be very, very careful around eligibility rules and make sure that we are absolutely clear who’s available (and) what we need to do to make sure that they can get on the field for us at the Rugby World Cup if we are keen on having them in our group.”
Watch: Rugby World Cup Japan city guide - Fukuoka
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Latest Comments
I hope super bee and mopar didn’t read it all.
Go to commentsYou’ve got to look forward to next weekend more than anything too.
They really use this sorta system? Much smaller pool of bonus points available, that would mean they have far less impact. Interestingly you must be withen winning range/chance in France’s Top 14 league, rather that just draw territory, so 6 points instead of 7. Fairly arbitrary and pointless (something the NRL would do to try and look cool), but kinda cool.
I said it Nick’s and other articles, I’m not sure about the fixed nature of matchups in these opening rounds. For instance, I would be interested in seeing an improved ranking/prediction/reflection ladder to what we had last year, were some author here game so rejigged list of teams purely based of ‘who had played who’ so far in the competition. It was designed to analyze the ladder and better predict what the real order would be after the full round robin had completed. It needed some improvement, like factoring in historical data as well, as it was a bit skiwif, but it is the sort of thing that would give a better depiction of what sort of contests weve had so far, because just using my intuition, the matchups have been very ‘level appropriate’ so far, and were jet to get the other end of the spectrum, season ranked bottom sides v top sides etc.
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