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Tonga bring in the heavyweights as nine changes made for England
By PA
Tonga have reinforced their team for Saturday’s Autumn Nations Series clash with England by calling up players from the Gallagher Premiership and Top 14. The Pacific Islanders were overrun 60-14 by Scotland at Murrayfield but as that match fell outside the international window, they were unable to pick some of their more established names.
Having announced nine chances to the Tonga XV that will start at Twickenham, French clubs are most heavily represented in the pack where starts are given to Bordeaux prop Ben Tameifuna, Toulon flanker Lopeti Timani, Grenoble lock Tanginoa Halaifonua, Agen hooker Paula Ngauamo and Pau prop Sigfried Fisi’ihoi.
In the backs, Stade Francais full-back Telusa Veainu, Toulon scrum-half Sonatane Takulua and Bayonne centre Mailetoa Hingano are picked to take on Eddie Jones’ men. Takulua captains the side while Worcester No8 Sione Vailanu is also present.
TONGA (vs England): T Veainu; W Fifita, M Hingano, A Taumoepeau, S Kata; Kurt Morath, S Takulua (capt); S Fisi’ihoi, P Ngauamo, B Tameifuna, H Fifita, T Halaifonua, L Timani, M Kafatolu, S Vailanu. Reps: S Maile, L Uhila, M Fia, S Funaki, O Havili, L Fukofuka, J Faiva, V Fine.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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