World Sevens Rugby

The union are at pains to point out that the only official outlet for match tickets is Ticketmaster via www.rwcsevens.com. “Any other seller is a scammer,” SA Rugby have said.

“The return of full attendance has also brought the return of the conmen and the scammers,” warned Jurie Roux, SA Rugby CEO.

“We have seen an explosion in recent days in fans contacting us to ask when they will receive tickets bought through online resellers.

The Manu Samoa men's 7s team have not taken the field for 12 months after last season's World Series was cut short because of Covid-19, while the Manusina women have been out of action since the Oceania Sevens Championship in November 2019.

Neither team has any matches scheduled before the Olympic qualifier in June.

Samoa Rugby Union High Performance Unit General Manager, Seumanu Douglas Ngau Chun, said the government has applied for them to travel to New Zealand so they can get some much needed match-play before flying to Europe.

As reported by World Rugby, Mai was one of Tenana’s top picks when he assembled his own line-up for the world’s best rugby 7s team.

“Uale was an extremely intelligent player, a chess master who could put all the right pieces in place and read all the twists and turns before they’d even occurred. I played against him a lot of times and always admired how he controlled the game. He didn’t necessarily score a lot of tries himself, but he was responsible for putting tries on a plate for others.” Said Tenana.

Fepulea’I also said that Samoa Rugby Union fully supports the decision.

 “The high death toll in some of the host countries such as UK, France and Asia poses a huge risk we cannot afford to have our players exposed to, given our Country’s small population,” he said.

Since the declaration of the State of Emergency by the government, Samoa Rugby Union has followed all lockdown conditions and worked closely with sub-unions to ensure everyone keeps within the parameters of SOE orders.

The Manu Sevens were pipped 19-17 by England in the playoff for third place after being outclassed 38-7 by eventual winners South Africa in the Cup semi-finals.

Samoa had earlier beaten Australia 19-14 in the quarter finals after finishing second in their group behind tournament runners-up New Zealand.

Captain Tomasi Alosio was named in the tournament Dream Team as the Samoans recorded their best result in Dubai since winning the season-opening event in 2012.

The 30-year-old playmaker, who was named in the World Series 'Dream Team' for the third year running, was a key figure as Fiji won titles in Cape Town, Hamilton, Hong Kong, London and Paris to secure the 2018/19 World Series title, their first since 2016.

Tuwai was also nominated for the player of the year award in 2017 and 2018, losing on both occasions to USA flyer Perry Baker, but Samisoni Viriviri is the only Fijian player to win the award back in 2014.