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“ASRU—STOP THE NONSENSE”

Dear Editor,

 

Where do I even begin? Do I begin with the ASRU and their malicious attempts against the players— or with their compromising the player’s safety just so they don't have to go through a lot of work?

 

Earlier this summer, the ASRU scheduled the Leone Whites Rugby team to play three games in one week with just one day in between to rest and prepare. One of the ASRU board members posted on facebook saying: As a “trainer”, she knew that the scheduling of the games for Leone Whites to play 3 games in one week was UNSAFE but “they had no control over the stadium and their schedules.”

 

Before I go any further, let me just clear out that during the  2013-2014 season, with Fagatogo Blues being shield holders, there were a few problems with the games, and so the ASRU rescheduled the last two games of the 2013-2014 season to be carried out this year, a week before going into the 2014-2015 Rugby league.

 

My question is: If the ASRU Board knew that the scheduling was UNSAFE, why didn't they carry the last game for this season into next year— if the stadium and their schedules didn't quite fit? The ASRU board member replied back: "We had some problems with trying to finish last year's game's this year and we didn't want to go through the hassle again".

 

That reply nearly took my eyeballs out when reading it. So you are saying that as "ASRU members" and as a "trainer", you would rather compromise the safety of the players just so you don't have to "go through the hassle" —or would you rather carry out the last game in the next season to ensure the safety of the players?

 

That's them telling us that the safety of players were of little concern to them, and they were willing to compromise that, just so they won't have to go through the work! I'm sure there were other ways they could finish the season this year instead of physically draining the players and putting them on the field when they were physically hurt and drained from the last one— and with just one day to prepare for the next game.

 

The Leone Whites played Pago Pago, a strong team on Tuesday 08/12/2014 and then played Lalomalava, also a very strong team on Thursday 08/14/2014 and originally scheduled to play Tonga on Saturday 08/16/2014.

 

A professional trainer would never in a million years have his team play three games in one week due to the physicality of the game. After winning the shield from Fagatogo this year, every team that played Fagatogo should play Leone next. That worked out smoothly until Lalomalava's turn. After Lalomalava played Fagatogo, they were supposed to play Leone next, but they never did.

 

The ASRU scheduled Leone to play Lalomalava on the week that they scheduled for Leone to play three games. Now, it doesn't have to be rocket science to figure this out, but I think that it is only fair to think that this was the ASRU's malicious attempts to 1)Take the shield away from Leone and by doing so 2)Scheduled Leone to play three games in one week to physically hurt the players to increase Lalomalava's chance to take the shield. 3)Admitting to knowing that the schedule was UNSAFE and still went ahead with it and therefore compromised the safety of the players.

 

We are trying to shed some light and turn some heads (the right ones) to end this nonsense once and for all and for someone to take these clowns off the ASRU board and put people on the board that have played the game, know the rules, and won't compromise the safety of the players to make their jobs easy.

 

It's a shame, that people who call themselves ambassadors and representatives for the people can use their power to hurt the one thing that they should be standing up for and protecting..... "The people".

 

Togiola Tulafono should focus on running for Congress and finding ways to do so instead of using his position as ASRU President to play politics.

 

This is RUGBY not POLITICS so STOP with your NONSENSE.

 

Lisa Veavea