The First Nations & Pasifika XV have challenged the Wallabies to a showdown after pushing the British & Irish Lions close to their first Australian tour defeat in an impressive, spirited display in Melbourne on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Although the players \u2013 with a mix of Indigenous Australian, Cook Islander, Fijian, M\u0101ori, Samoan and Tongan backgrounds \u2013 came together in camp last week for the first time and were largely written off before the match, they dominated their opposition for long periods and had chances in the dying stages to level scores before falling 24-19.<\/p>\n
Backrower Rob Leota, who scored a 70th-minute try for the First Nations & Pasifika side to set up a grandstand finish in front of 30,000 fans at Marvel Stadium, said not only must the new outfit live on, they must be given a chance against Australia\u2019s national team.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these boys are fringe Wallabies players and aspiring to try to get back in the squad,\u201d he said. \u201cYou see tonight man, when you\u2019re playing for your culture it brings something out of you,\u201d Leota said.<\/p>\n
First Nations and Pasifika XV players at Marvel Stadium. Photograph: James Ross\/Reuters<\/p>\n
The Wallabies only played a single warm-up match against Fiji and were dominated in the physical opening stages of the first Test against the Lions on Saturday.<\/p>\n
First Nations & Pasifika flanker Charlie Gamble, the player of the match on Tuesday, echoed Leota\u2019s sentiment and said he and his team-mates would have something to prove against the first-choice Australian XV.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Wallabies only had the Fiji game [before the Lions series], why can\u2019t we be the warm-up to play the Lions?\u201d, he said. \u201cMore games is only going to help them, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Gamble \u2013 who has Tongan background on his mother\u2019s side and grew up in New Zealand \u2013 was unlucky to miss out on the Wallabies squad for the Lions series.<\/p>\n
\u201cUs fringe players, who are trying to put our hand up as well [would be motivated], trying to show our potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The performance was impressive given staff \u2013 including coach Toutai Kefu and assistants Tana Umaga, Sekope Kepu and Glen Ella \u2013 had barely a week\u2019s preparation with the players, and the Lions barred Pete Samu from playing because he hadn\u2019t played Super Rugby this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing about our cultures \u2013 and this is the Indigenous and the Pasifika \u2013 we value family, [it\u2019s] where tribe comes first,\u201d Kefu said. \u201cSo we find connecting\u2019s very easy for us, so we just build on that and reinforce that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The players worked with a cultural adviser during the week and took part an ava ceremony, a Samoan tradition to mark important milestones, for the presentation of jerseys.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In 2004, a combined Pacific Islands side played an Australian team featuring current Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh and were defeated 29-14 in Adelaide.<\/p>\n That team beat the Waratahs 68-21 the week before and went on to narrowly lose to New Zealand and South Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n This year\u2019s First Nations & Pasifika concept was only created due to the demise of the Melbourne Rebels, and the need for Rugby Australia to provide another opponent for the Lions under the agreement governing the tour.<\/p>\n Darug man and the side\u2019s captain, Kurtley Beale, said the next fixture could be a warm-up match for the Wallabies, or a game against the M\u0101ori All Blacks who are already regular opponents against international opposition.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever it is, I think bigger picture and I think it\u2019s definitely needed in our game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But Leota \u2013 who has Samoan background and is moving to France to play for Bayonne next season \u2013 was more explicit, saying the Wallabies would be \u201cthe perfect match\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s a Test match or a warm-up match [to a Test series], it\u2019s just so important for this team to keep going, because tonight we showed what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The First Nations & Pasifika XV have challenged the Wallabies to a showdown after pushing the British &…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-283907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114899878090106936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}