"Now, more than 10,000 Fijians play the game, whose popularity in the Pacific owed much to "local" island rivalries. Fiji first played Tonga in 1924, 40 years before they brought their talents to Britain and France. The taste of home which rugby traditionally gave colonials throughout the world was soon overtaken by the desire to show the mother country how well they could play. That was certainly true of New Zealand, who used their rugby prowess so famously demonstrated on the 1905 tour to British shores as an advertisement to attract immigrants. The message from the then Prime Minster Richard Seddon was that these sons of the Empire were fitter, stronger and had a better quality of life than their British male counterparts."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Sean Smith, “Rugby Union: How the imperial settlers carried an oval ball from the Pampas to Pacific”, The Independent, (30 September 1999).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rugby_league
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Rugby league
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