{"id":496454,"date":"2026-02-22T08:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496454\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T08:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:59:11","slug":"tana-umaga-left-frustrated-by-short-fiji-to-wellington-turnaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/496454\/","title":{"rendered":"Tana Umaga left frustrated by short Fiji-to-Wellington turnaround"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Umaga\u2019s side were superb in round one against the Fijian Drua<\/a> in Lautoka, where they managed to overcome their Pacific brothers, 40-24.<\/p>\n

They then had to travel to Wellington<\/a> to take on the Hurricanes, who were fresh and ready after a first-round bye, on a six day turnaround.<\/p>\n

Moana Pasifika made a number of changes to their lineup and had eight debutants in their matchday 23, giving a number of players opportunities to impress who didn\u2019t play in Lautoka.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media post-match in Wellington, Umaga admitted the Hurricanes<\/a> were a much better side on the night and were electric with ball in hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously take our hats off for the Hurricanes, they played some great rugby there, and kind of showed us when you can get on the front foot, and they kept the ball alive.<\/p>\n

But amidst the chat about the Hurricanes\u2019 performance, Umaga had a bone to pick about the league\u2019s draw system.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah look we always get it [short turnaround]. We either go to Perth and then we have a short turnaround, or we go to Lautoka and we\u2019ve got a short turnaround, and then we have to travel somewhere else,\u201d Umaga said post-match at Sky Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the only team that\u2019s got that kind of two games in a row this year. Everyone else either goes to play away in Lautoka and then comes home and plays at home. We didn\u2019t have that, and it\u2019s not on a short turnaround, so I don\u2019t know why we got that and no one else did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Umaga also explained that this isn\u2019t the first time Moana Pasifika has had to do this, saying that he believes no other team has these specific turnarounds from away games far from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the third year in a row that that\u2019s happened to us, and yes, we are taking note about it, and so hopefully, maybe next year, we might be lucky enough that it won\u2019t happen to us, but I won\u2019t hold my breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I thought I\u2019d try something else this year, and probably the idea would be just to have a bit longer so our guys can recover, and then who knows what could happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just saying we\u2019re the only team that does this. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s an unfair system, we just cop it and we\u2019ll do what we have to do and that\u2019s what we did today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Umaga\u2019s side were superb in round one against the Fijian Drua in Lautoka, where they managed to overcome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-496454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496454","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=496454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}