Pacific Championships 2025

Tough to go into that game when Samoa had a chance to blow the cobwebs out last week and most of the Tongan side didn't play finals, but credit to Samoa who appear to finally be building consistently.

Iongi at 6 unfortunately doesn't appear to be an answer to the 'who should partner Isaiya Katoa' question.

Samoa utilise their forwards much better when Ioelu/CHT are providing decent service compared to Havili/Luke.

I think the Australian pack would find a decent challenge against Samoa/Tonga - but the factor of Harry Grant brings every Australian forward up a few points. I don't think the Harry Grant factor would be enough for Australia to get over the NZ pack because they would be too much for him defensively - Why every team doesn't do this every game is beyond me, he's a superstar but is a mid-low tier defensive 9 and is too explosive to have an 80-minute gas tank at rep level (as NSW/NZ have proven in the past).

Fun times for test football nonetheless.
 
Sad to hear Voss say in commentary that the next Tonga vs Samoa game could be years away. Should be a huge part of our calendar, at least every second year.

Gave up waiting for the end of the match, but looks like Samoa ran away with it a bit.

Still nervous about NZ’s chances vs Tonga next week. But a Samoa NZ final will be pretty epic. Finally bought my tickets yesterday!
 
MullosLefttoRight said:
Tough to go into that game when Samoa had a chance to blow the cobwebs out last week and most of the Tongan side didn't play finals, but credit to Samoa who appear to finally be building consistently.

Iongi at 6 unfortunately doesn't appear to be an answer to the 'who should partner Isaiya Katoa' question.

Samoa utilise their forwards much better when Ioelu/CHT are providing decent service compared to Havili/Luke.

I think the Australian pack would find a decent challenge against Samoa/Tonga - but the factor of Harry Grant brings every Australian forward up a few points. I don't think the Harry Grant factor would be enough for Australia to get over the NZ pack because they would be too much for him defensively - Why every team doesn't do this every game is beyond me, he's a superstar but is a mid-low tier defensive 9 and is too explosive to have an 80-minute gas tank at rep level (as NSW/NZ have proven in the past).

Fun times for test football nonetheless.
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Australia win both Tonga and Samoa by 20+ I mean we did handle one of them very easy in a certain final.

Luai always gets eaten alive when he has to compete against world class 7s people are finding out Luai is a bang average first grader that was carried beyond belief in the Panthers system and since leaving he has failed drastically even losing his 7 jersey to a rookie and getting slapped up in origin.

And New Zealand we have beaten twice in our last three including the time people tipped them to beat us in the World Cup, not to mention in the last Pacific championship when we beat them to a easy 22-10 and lomax missed two goals so easy could have been 26-10. We then went on to beat Tonga as well.

Even with the people jumping ship I don’t see them beaten Australia without Australia playing horribly, Australia’s hard grinding down play style is normally to much for islanders to cope with for 80 minutes straight it’s what we also recently did to England, Australia is the Panthers of the international game, we just grind teams and take them to deep waters for 80 and wait for the others to screw up.

It’s what Australia have done for ages now, it’s just fact islanders rely way to heavily on the strength of there big blokes so we just strengthen the middle and let them tire themselves out and swing it out the back, strength and big blokes are good but without proper Strategy it’s as close to useless as you can get.

The closest island nation that copies us would be New Zealand but they still have mind fades from time to time.

All in all for the final I believe New Zealand will win 16+
 
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