Samoa and Tonga’s World Cup clash more than a game for a generation of fans turned heroes

Ahead of their sold-out Rugby League World Cup match on Sunday, the new faces of the eternal rivalry between Tonga and Samoa didn’t quite go straight from the stands onto the field, but they went pretty close.

Four years ago, when the two met in the last World Cup, Francis Manuleleua was hunched over in his bedroom in South Auckland, watching the game on his phone.

He was 18, with the rugby league world at his feet, and after Samoa held on for a pulsating 20-18 victory, he snatched up a flag and marched into the street because his life had changed forever.

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“Growing up I was always picked in the Kiwi teams, Under 16s and Under 18s and that, so there was a feeling of wanting to pull on that black jersey in either league or union,” Manuleleua said.

“But after that 2022 World Cup, seeing all the boys play, how much it meant to them, that’s when it changed for me and I thought to myself ‘this is the jersey I’d want to put on if I ever get the opportunity’.”

Across the Tasman, Sua Fa’alogo was part of the same celebratory throng, wherever the four winds could take Samoans from their islands.

The 23-year-old was born and raised in Samoa, in the village of Si’umu, and lived there until he was nine, when his parents moved to Melbourne to find a better life for him and his eight siblings.

Leka Halasima’s story was similar: he was born in Tofoa, Tonga, before moving to New Zealand as a boy.

In 2024, a few months after his NRL debut and well before every league fan knew his name, he watched his two nations go head-to-head in the Pacific Championship, cheering on the Mate Ma’a in a 25-24 victory.

“Then the next year I was playing with them,” Halasima said.

Now the 21-year-old Warriors tyro is doing more than just playing, he is starring alongside the heroes of his childhood and taking forward what they started.

“For a young person like me, I’ve been a fan since that 2017 World Cup and to go from being in the stands cheering to playing alongside people like Jase (Jason Taumalolo), who I look up to, it’s an honour. It’s a privilege,” Halasima said.

Fa’alogo, Manuleleua and Halasima are not just three of rugby league’s brightest young stars; they are part of a new generation inheriting a relationship thousands of years in the making.

The history and culture of Tonga and Samoa are proudly separate and distinct but also irrevocably intertwined by centuries of love and blood and faith, first back in the islands and now within the great Pasifika diaspora.

Today, that relationship plays out in all its colour and splendour on the rugby league field, in grand occasions that prove Tonga and Samoa are a people as much as they’re a place.

That place can be wherever either nation plays on their own, but it happens the most when they face one another.

It’s been this way long enough that players like Manuleleua, Fa’alogo, and Halasima grew up on occasions like this and dreamed of being part of it.

“Since the draw came out, I’ve been thinking of this day. I’m pretty sure every islander around the world can’t wait for it,” Halasima said.

“This is pretty much finals footy, this is what it’s all about.”

Manuleleua played in the NRL grand final for Newcastle earlier this month in what was the most important night of his young life — until Sunday.

“This will probably be the biggest game I’ve ever been a part of it. A grand final is pretty big too, but the rivalry between Samoa and Tonga runs deeper than footy,” Manuleleua said.

“A few of my mates are Tongan, and we know deep down we have that hatred for each other when it comes to coming up against them.

“As soon as we cross that white line there’s no friends, but after those 80 minutes we’ll get together, have a beer and everything will be all sweet.”

These games can happen anywhere, because while the islands are always home, the Pasifika diaspora has taken them to the world, and another home can happen wherever Samoans or Tongans come together.

Four years ago it happened in Warrington, 12 months ago it happened in Brisbane in front of 45,000 people in a game that felt like the State of Origin of the new century, and on Sunday it will happen in Parramatta.

Manuleleua’s parents are coming over from Auckland but his siblings, he jokes, will have to make their own way.

Halasima will have his partner and newborn son there, as well as his parents, sisters, aunts, and uncles coming from New Zealand and up from Melbourne.

For Fa’alogo it will be an even more special day because his father, Eti, has never seen him play for Melbourne or Samoa in the flesh but he will be there on Sunday to watch his youngest become a part of history.

“I can’t wait. He’s done so much for me,” Fa’alogo said.

“I just want to give back to him for everything he did, for bringing me over and trying to give me the opportunity for a better life.”

The game itself is a coin flip. Tonga is bigger, stronger and more battle-hardened; Samoa is faster and has more strike as proven by their big win last year.

The former is already locked into a semifinal spot, and the latter may well be by kick-off depending on the scoreline between England and Papua New Guinea, but this is a game that is bigger than a World Cup and larger than life.

The fresh faces feel the legacy of the history between the two nations even as they write its latest chapter, and they want to pass it down just as it was passed to them.

Earlier this year, Fa’alogo went back to Si’umu as part of a trip with the Storm.

He went to his old house and his old school and caught up with family.

Wherever he went, children followed. It has been that way ever since he made his NRL debut in 2023 and his Samoan debut a few months later, but Fa’alogo might not ever get used to it.

“I was shocked,” Fa’alogo said.

“Back then I was one of them.”