Graduation time

WESTERN Samoa is finally get ting what it wants a rugby

championship with the big

boys. Last month the organisers of the South Pacific Championship rugby series decided to suspend the competition for a year while they draw up a better plan for 1992. In that plan is likely to be an invitation for Samoans to take part. For Western Samoa such an invitation will be an acknowledgement of its status as champions of the Pacific Three Nations between Fiji and Tonga.

The South Pacific Championship was played between New South Wales, Queensland, Auckland, Wellington, Can terbury and Fiji. It started in 1986. A

meeting of the organisers in Christ church on July 20 decided to suspend it for a year while: • the participants organise their own tours next season • invite four more teams, including possibly Western Samoa, Australian

Capital Territory, Otago and Waikato to

join

• split the teams into two pools; the pool winners will play the final • invite the current sponsors, Fisher and Paykell, again to sponsor the cham pionship in 1992.

The championship’s organising chair

man, Queensland Rugby Union execu tive director Terry Doyle, explained that one reason for suspending the cham pionship was the need to give the teams a break before the World Cup next year.