Samoa sqaud travels from far and wide - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Samoa sqaud travels from far and wide

Adrian Warren 16/07/2011 10:39:55 AM Comments (0)

In a season of gruelling travel, Samoa halfback Kahn Fotuali'i has ironically covered less ground than any of his far flung team mates to make it to Sunday's rugby Test against the Wallabies.

Samoa's run on side, comprised totally of overseas-based players, contains men who ply their trade in England, New Zealand, Japan, France and Wales.

Fotuali'i was part of the globetrotting and nomadic Crusaders side that spent their entire Super Rugby campaign on the road due to the devastating earthquakes that rocked their region.

While two injuries reduced his workload to ten games, he still travelled to South Africa, England and twice to Australia.

This week however, he only had to travel to Sydney from Brisbane, where he was part of the Crusaders' squad that lost the Super Rugby final to Queensland.

He stayed in Brisbane until Monday evening, when he hooked up with his Samoa team mates in Sydney.

"I'm still travelling, at least I can say I've been in the country for more than a week," Fotuali'i told AAP.

Although he makes the step up from Super to Test rugby this weekend, Fotuali'i can expect to play in front of a much smaller crowd at ANZ Stadium, than the 52,000-plus that packed into Suncorp Stadium last Saturday.

"It was pretty amazing, a full stadium, really noisy," Fotuali'i said.

"Anybody to get that far and actually lose the final is pretty gutted. You work so hard to get there and when you lose it feels like it was all for nothing really.

"It's always tough losing, it definitely felt like a Test match."

Fotuali'i hinted Samoa wouldn't deviate too much from their traditional hard running, tough tackling style in Sunday's Test.

"I think everyone knows the style of rugby the Samoans like to play, use the ball a lot, quite physical in the contact area and like to truck it up a bit," Fotuali'i said.

"We sort of want to stick to that, because that's probably one of our strengths."

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