Could a Pacific Nations Touring Team be the Savour of International League?

 

As I lay here bounced out on a Sunday, post-Gatorade saxophone session and kfc feast (With a full strength Pepsi, none of that diet shit), I find myself once again pondering over what international Rugby League could be.

As a true rugby league dribbler through and through, and a DMC tragic at that (2024 is the year of the tiger), I often loathe watching our Football and Rugby counterparts on the international scene. Not because i don’t get around the dribblers and dribblettes representing our proud nation, but just because I wish that the soap opera of Rugby League could be played and enjoyed by the whole world.

One way to prop up funds for international league and put lead in the pencils of all the P’s and D’s out there would be to have a Polynesian/Melanesian combined team do a tour of Australia, New Zealand, England, and even France if they want it. This shouldn’t be an annual tour but something that happens every four years (perhaps the year after each world cup) similar to the British and Irish Lions tour, in order to uphold the prestige it will be fitting of.

More focusing on those who have publicly come out as willing to represent their heritage over Aus/ NZ, I’ve constructed a potential team from the current playing crop.

1. Will Hopoate (Tonga)

2. Maika Sivo (Fiji)

3. Justin Olam (PNG)

4. Stephen Crichton (Samoa)

5. Bryan To’o (Samoa)

6. Kotoni staggs (Tonga)

7. jarome Luai (Samoa)

8. Josh Papalii (Samoa & Cook islands)

9. Apisai Korisau (Fiji)

10. Addin Fonua Blake (Tonga)

11. Viliame Kikau (Fiji)

12. Tariq Sims (Fiji)

13. Jason Taumalolo (C) (Tonga)

14. Josh Schuster (Samoa & the legally blind)

15. Dylan Napa (Cook Islands)

16. Rhyse Martin (PNG)

17. Martin taupau (Samoa)

Imagine this team touring every four years against the Kangaroos, Kiwis and the poms. Sell out matches at Eden park, Suncorp, Anfield or Old Trafford. I’m already drooling at the prospect. You could even host one of the games in Hawaii and sell out a stadium over there to show the USA what Rugby League is capable of. Are you telling me Wayne the Rock Johnson wouldn’t humble brag about how he could have been a professional Rugby player if he wanted to? That’ll put the bums on seats, 

Now i ask you, the movers and shakers at Hello sport to get the dribble and yarn flowing through the right channels to give this the push the game needs.

Standing ovations forever, Parra Never. Boxman dribbler over and out.