The three powerhouses of Pacific Rugby Union – Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji – have suffered humiliation, and indeed shameful defeat at the hands of European teams. Two of the European teams are from countries where soccer, not rugby, is the main national sport.

The worse of the defeat was England thrashing Fiji 73 – 8. Fiji was not expected to beat England, but to loose by such a huge margin was never known for this rugby loving country.

Georgia, a country where rugby only became prominent in the past two decades, thrashed Samoa 33-12; and Tonga was humiliated by Spain, 32 – 19. Both Georgia and Spain are “soccer countries”, but obviously they have built up rugby in the past few years, while Samoa and Tonga seemed to have declined immeasurably.

Add Fiji’s huge defeat to the mix, and we can only conclude that Pacific Rugby really needs a restart!

What went wrong, and how it can be made right, will need to be part of the on-going discussion about Pacific Rugby. A sport where Pacific Islanders have been known to excel for so many years, have become a place where there is wonderment at what happened?