Tonga's Teufaiva Stadium ready to host rugby tests Featured
6 June, 2017. Teufaiva Stadium has been given the all clear to host Tonga's Pacific Nations Cup rugby tests against Samoa and Fiji next month.
The 'Ikale Tahi have not played on home soil since 2009, while next Friday's test against Wales was relocated to Auckland because the field was deemed unfit for play.
A final ground inspection was made by World Rugby officials last week in Nuku'alofa, following the Oceania Rugby AGM, where final sign off was given.
Tonga Rugby CEO Fe'ao Vunipola said they were thankful for the support of the government, pitch consultants and the contractors who had carried out the work to get Teufaiva ready for test match rugby.
"It's massive. It has been eight long years 'Ikale Tahi have been playing in exile, playing overseas and Tongan people always look forward to bringing them home, hosting them here," he said.
"This is a golden opportunity for them to perform here, particularly with Rugby World Cup 2019 qualificaition against Fiji and Samoa.
"Home advantage is huge so hopefully we can draw on that, provide incentives and extra motivation for the boys to perform well."
Fe'ao Vunipola said the playing area was ready to go and upgrades to the grandstand and facilties would be completed later this month.
"Works is running in accordance to a schedule being set," he said.
"After the Oceania AGM we went around with World Rugby personnel and had the final inspection and they gave us the thumbs up so everything is tip-top and ready to go."
-RNZI
2 comments
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Fe'ao Vunipola is a puppet straw-man for PM 'Akilisi Pohiva. He lies to further the PM's lies. I was at Teufaiva Stadium at the Inter-collegiate Athletics competitions in April. The same grass on the field was not new. How could the same grass that did not qualify for the Wales Rugby Union Tour be replanted and grow in less than 4 months? Teufaiva Stadium restrooms are still the pigsty it has been; portable potties were used during the schools' games.
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What the hell is going on here? I am hard put to see the logic of it all here, only because there is simply no logic. If logic is commonsense, what commonsense is there, only if there is any? This is symptomatic of the work of the pm and government. especially based on the technicality of good governance as opposed to its legality.
Where does the support of the government (minus the other forms of support) come into the whole equation, when its support was somewhere else, namely, the full construction of the public park and golf course at Popua, which should have been be made low in the list of priorities at this very point in time as compared to both the immediacy and urgency of upgrading (but not the full construction of) Teufaiva Stadium?
If Teufaiva Stadium was declared unfit for the Tonga-Wales rugby game this month why now considered fit for the Tonga-Fiji and Tongan-Samoa rugby games next month. Are there different criteria for measuring local Pacific rugby games and and international rugby games or are the criteria same for all?
Please clarify, either the pm and government or Tonga Rugby CEO and Tonga Rugby Committee or both.