Dear Editor

Re: All is not lost 

That you Mata’afa for your editorial. What we have to realise is that rugby is a sport, first and foremost. 

And like any other sport, rugby goes in cycles. It is our turn to be at the bottom of the cycle just like Fiji and Tonga were. 

The mistake we make is to treat rugby as if it is a national heritage to which we are the only ones entitled to it.

Past teams were great due to the combination of personnel, coaches and the performance of other teams. Everything was relative. 

Now we probably don’t have the team personnel or the coaches or whatever, OR, simply the other Pacific teams have better personnel and/or coaches than us. Should we commit collective hari kari over this? Of course not. 

The great ALL Blacks team went through a cycle like this and the Wallabies are going through this at present. And like Samoa, there is lot of soul searching in this part of the cycle. 

Inevitably, things will get better and the Manu will start winning again.

We need a circuit breaker and clearly it is not going to come from the current mob. Perhaps we are being unrealistic to hope that this circuit breaker will arrive soon. 

We might have to wait a while for something good to happen.

We need to adjust our expectation levels to match the current performance of the team and then we don’t become bitterly disappointed if the Manu does not win.

Like the sun will rise tomorrow analogy, the Manu will become great again but when is anybody’s guess.

Vai Autu