Great Fijian turnout today at the game, was great post match with all the celebrations in the North East corner of the ground, especially with some of the Fijian players coming in to the crowd to celebrate with the fans and pose for pictures etc, makes you love rugby league even more!

Went to Espania this year always fancied going to 日本 preferably Tokyo or is that 東京 ?

If you're English it's Samoa if you're Samoan it's Sa-moa.

I bet RHP puts an Italian accent on when ordering food in an Italian restaurant.

Another thing to come out of this World Cup is that Samoa has a great player pool to call on. Half the NZ team are Samoan as well.
If a firstgrade coach wanted to make a name for himself he could do worse than to take on Samoa for the next WC. A decent coach putting in time to get the right squad together and Samoa will threaten the top 3 by next WC.

And Fiji naturally create fantastic outside backs.

The kid with the fantastic back story who scored 27 tries for Penrith in the NSW cup this year in his first season of League could be better than all of them.

The story is that Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler went to Fiji to look at some players and do some coaching, and their 6'5" hotel porter caught their eye. They took him out to a field and kicked some balls to him. Johns said they asked him what game he played and he said "Union" and they replied, "you play League now" and they rang Gus Gould and got him a contract with Penrith.
I only saw him play once last year. He is massive, fast, and I saw him leap way over the top of Josh Mantellato to score a try - and no one out leaps Josh.
Gould said on TV during the finals that he would have played firstgrade this year if the salary cap had allowed it, and that's in his first year playing League.

what about the Italian RLWC 2013 Squad

Surely Fiji would only finish 4th if they lost a play off between the 2 losing semi-finalists?

Fijian hotel porter who will be one of the best in the NRL next year. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6532782944 www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6731894528

Fijian hotel porter who will be one of the best in the NRL next year. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6532782944 www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6731894528

they've already lost to England

Quote ="roopy"Fijian hotel porter who will be one of the best in the NRL next year. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6532782944 www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6731894528'" Great story! Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler are doing what the RLIF should be doing.

Quote ="roopy"Fijian hotel porter who will be one of the best in the NRL next year. www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6532782944 www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 6731894528'" Great story! Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler are doing what the RLIF should be doing.

So?

That is quite an incredible story and just shows how much the Aussies are as introverted in development if it takes two ex players to do this off their own backs.

He's from New Zealand and is a Maori, so of course he's gonna pronounce it correctly



He's not English

(and most people do pronounce foreign foods properly if they know how to pronounce it and don't want to look like idiots)

You pronounce it dependant on your origin, I'll let RHP as he's a Kiwi (even though it's a different country to Samoa)
Besides I didn't raise the original point.

Back on the game, just looked at a highlights video of Koroibete, how quick is that guy?

10.75 seconds for 100 meters according to wiki

Kev Naiqama is faster. If he gets in the clear you can put the glasses down.
I think Koroibete was faster earlier this year but a leg injury has slowed him a bit.
Uate was quicker than all of them before he put on a bit of beef, and is still only half a metre behind Kev over 60 metres.

What they feeding them in Fiji?

Drink lots of Kava.....

Just watching the game again and I have to say the ref had a brilliant game.
They are two sides who can both get more than a bit dirty when allowed, and the ref jumped on that from the start, but still let them play their games and didn't blow for silly things.
10/10 for the ref. Best performance of the tournament so far IMO.

Bloody hell that's the first time I've heard Silverwood get praise on these boards.

The samoa player in tears minutes from the end being consoled by one of the trainers was an iconic sporting moment, and showed how much the world cup means.

i was stood in my usual spec, and very very early on silverwood was being lenient or something towards fiji so us Samoans (from Westy

)got on his case as you do.

There's a family* stood next to me, the father says to me "i'm getting from that response you lot have encountered this ref before".

*Had a chat with him during the game, he'd come to warrington with his three lads from Bury, they were all shakers fans but intrigue got him to the game at Rochdale, he enjoyed that and went to scotland USA at Salford and then wanted to come the quarter final.

They all had a great time enjoyed the fast play and hits, i did my best to explain what was going on in bits and pieces and they all seemed pretty keen, so, Salford or Rochdale, you might have a new season ticket holder, you can forward me my commision




Oh yes, the huddle and prayer at the end, was humbling to witness and was one of the most unique things i've seen at a game. possibly the counterpoint to the minute silence that became an applause for Steve Prescott last week, last night the post match music got turned down and everyone remaining in the stadium went quiet in respect of waht we were witnessing.

Such unique memories from this tournament.

And people say we don't need international tournaments

The worry is for the next RLWC the likes of Koroibete will be playing for the Aussies.

At least Fiji are in next years Four Nations so that should help them stay with Fiji for at least 12 months