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Vaea Fifita snubs New Zealand Super Rugby return
By Neil Fissler
The Scarlets have pulled off a massive coup after holding off the advances of Super Rugby outfit Moana Pasifika to retain the services of former All Black’s blindside flanker Vaea Fifita.
Moana Pasifika head coach Fa'alogo Tana Umaga wanted to follow up the signing of All Blacks vice-captain Ardie Savea by luring Fifita, 32, away from South Wales this summer.
Scarlets boss Dwayne Peel had been fighting hard to keep hold of Fifita, who won the Super Rugby title with Hurricanes and was signed from Wasps just before they went out of business two years ago.
Fifita, who earlier in the year was also linked with a move to Montpellier, has made 34 appearances in his two years with the Scarlets and is now likely to spend at least the next two seasons with the Scarlets - - report Wales Online.
Fifita won 11 All Black’s caps before switching his international allegiance to his native Tonga, playing two games in the World Cup last year before being banned after getting sent off against Scotland.
It is a blow for the Moana Pasifika, who were looking to take advantage of the Scarlets having £700,000 knocked off their playing budget for next season to operate with a salary cap of £4.5m.
Peel has done well to retain the services of big guns Fifita, Tongan lock Sam Lousi, Scotland second-row Alex Craig and Wales centre Johnny Williams while operating under such restrictions for next season.
And Peel admitted earlier this year that he thought it was going to be difficult to keep hold of his big names who would be taking up between 10 and 15 per cent of his total playing budget.
"The budget is the budget, and like every other business, you have to adjust your cloth accordingly. It’s difficult in many ways because you're competing with a market that's way above what you've got.
“You have to try and manage that budget the best you can in getting the depth in the squad and the quality needed. Those big money contracts are difficult to compete with because we haven't got the money,” he said.
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Latest Comments
"fl's idea, if I can speak for him to speed things up, was for it to be semifinalists first, Champions Cup (any that somehow didn't make a league semi), then Challenge's semi finalists (which would most certainly have been outside their league semi's you'd think), then perhaps the quarter finalists of each in the same manner. I don't think he was suggesting whoever next performed best in Europe but didn't make those knockouts (like those round of 16 losers), I doubt that would ever happen."
That's not quite my idea.
For a 20 team champions cup I'd have 4 teams qualify from the previous years champions cup, and 4 from the previous years challenge cup. For a 16 team champions cup I'd have 3 teams qualify from the previous years champions cup, and 1 from the previous years challenge cup.
"The problem I mainly saw with his idea (much the same as you see, that league finish is a better indicator) is that you could have one of the best candidates lose in the quarters to the eventual champions, and so miss out for someone who got an easier ride, and also finished lower in the league, perhaps in their own league, and who you beat everytime."
If teams get a tough draw in the challenge cup quarters, they should have won more pool games and so got better seeding. My system is less about finding the best teams, and more about finding the teams who perform at the highest level in european competition.
Go to commentsWalter has been permanently psychologically damaged since his wife left him and moved in with a man from Sydney.
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