The American Samoa National Rugby Team Talavalu is due to arrive back home sometime today (Monday) after competing in the Oceania Sevens held in Noosa, Australia, and losing out on a chance to qualify for the non-core Sevens World Series, to play at the 2015 HSBC Hong Kong and Wellington legs. The Talavalu did well despite losses in the quarterfinals.

They continued on to the official HSBC Sevens World Series at the Australian Gold Coast a week later (last weekend) where they played in a tough Pool against rugby giants Kenya, South Africa and Wales. They were shut out of all 3 games until they played Scotland in the Quarter-Finals and made another mark in rugby history by scoring their first try (Peter Masoe) at the HSBC Sevens World series at the Gold Coast. Talavalu scored one more try ( Aiotaota Vailolo) to end the game with Scotland 24 - ASA Talavalu 12. Last game was against Canada 50 -ASA 0.

The end of a tough two weeks of international rugby for the Talavalu, where they got to experience the highest quality of sevens rugby out there, played against some of the best players in the world, and hopefully has made the Amerika Samoa Rugby Union realize that with opportunities like this cropping up for our players to be able to play against the best in the world, development must now be an ongoing rather than sporadic as we have seen.

The players had the mind and will for the game, but as a commentator stated during one of the games, the bodies were just not able to keep up. Eight weeks of training is just not going to cut it anymore.