\u201cIf you look at it, it is a bit of a one-off. We haven\u2019t had a massive amount of prep but I know every single person that put their hands up for this was pretty excited. Because it is such a short campaign you don\u2019t have to look after your body too much, it is just a matter of getting in there and away you go,\u201d said Tonga\u2019s manager Milton Haig.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a management point of view, we see this as a fantastic opportunity because we are playing a tier one team, in an iconic stadium, so that in itself is a special occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cTevita, the head coach, has said to the boys, \u2018we are here, we have to have got to make sure we represent ourselves, our country and friends and family with pride.\u2019 I have no doubt that will happen on Sunday, regardless of the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonga\u2019s only victory over Scotland, a 21-15 win in 2012, came at Pittodrie in Aberdeen, not at the home of Scottish rugby.<\/p>\n
Several of the PNC squad are missing from the one that has made the trip to Edinburgh, with star players like former All Blacks<\/a> Salesi Piutau and Malakai Fekitoa<\/a> unavailable for this one-off Test.<\/p>\n Having played in the PNC, Piutau has opted to stay with his Japanese club Shimizu Blue Sharks<\/a> this time around, while explosive centre Fekitoa is currently serving a three-match suspension for a no-arms tackle, next door to Murrayfield, in Benetton\u2019s 43-0 defeat away to Edinburgh in the URC.<\/p>\n However, they can call on the huge presence of captain and prop, Ben Tameifuna<\/a>, plus wily old campaigner, Sonatane Takalua, at scrum-half, amongst others.<\/p>\n Scotland <\/p>\n Tonga <\/p>\n <\/p>\n They are also benefitting from the backs coaching of Haig, who has stepped into a hands-on role, rather than focus solely on managerial duties, because of the Blues\u2019 refusal to release their head coach, Daniel Halungahu for the Scotland match.<\/p>\n Haig has been with Tonga for the last 18 months, as a World Rugby High Performance consultant. But the Ikale \u2018Tahi were well aware of him before then, with the New Zealander leading Georgia<\/a> to a famous victory over the Islanders at Rugby World Cup<\/a> 2015.<\/p>\n He has known players like scrum-half Augustine Pulu<\/a> for the best part of 15 years, having coached the scrum-half when he was still a schoolboy in the Counties Manakau academy.<\/p>\n \u201cLife always throws up little mysteries, especially if you are a professional coach. Through my job as a High Performance consultant for World Rugby, I have had this opportunity to work with Tonga for 18 months, and when the head coach asked if I could be attack coach as well as manager, I said, of course I can.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel honoured. Tonga has always had a special place in my heart, not only because of what happened in 2015 at Kingsholm, but also because I used to coach a lot of Pasifika boys, Tongan boys in teams that I coached in New Zealand.<\/p>\n \u201cTo do some coaching for them, I am loving it. Once you are a coach, you are always a coach. It is very hard to give that up, coaching is in your blood really.\u201d<\/p>\n Half-a-dozen of the Tongan squad play for Moana Pasifika<\/a> in Super Rugby Pacific, but there playing in six countries outside of New Zealand, including Tonga itself, Australia, France<\/a> England, Wales<\/a> and Italy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 30-strong Tongan squad, representing 20 clubs and seven different countries, has been busy making up for lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-294579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763546367_130_814.png.webp\"\/)
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