Singapore 7s? When was that? For a nation that used to keep abreast with all the international sevens tournaments, people have chosen to forget about the World Sevens Series.

But who could blame them? The Manu Samoa sevens team has not done particularly well this year. The only achievement the team accomplished this year was qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris, but this was an easy task.

Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand had already finished in the top four of last year’s standing gaining automatic spots. This meant that all Samoa needed to do was beat the minnows in the region, none of those teams were part of the core competition.

At the end of this month, Madrid 7s will take place and unlike the rest of the tournaments this season, this tournament will see the bottom four placed teams go head-to-head against the top four teams from the Challenger Series.

If you did not know, Samoa is in the 11^th spot, and only one team, Canada finished below them. In Singapore, Samoa lost all their pool games, lost to Spain twice, and only beat Canada in the last match to finish with three points from the tournament.

In the World Sevens Standings, Canada is on the bottom, Samoa is 11^th, Spain 10^th, and the USA ninth. The top four in the Challenger Series are Uruguay, Germany, Chile and Hong Kong.

The newly introduced high-stakes promotion and relegation play-off competition takes place simultaneously in Madrid with teams ranked ninth to twelfth in SVNS 2024 competing with the top four teams from the World Rugby Sevens Challenger.

The competition format involves two pools of four teams to decide who plays who in the all-important play off matches, with the winners of the resulting four cross-over matches securing their place in HSBC SVNS 2025, while the losing teams will enter the regional qualification pathway for the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025.

Manu Samoa sevens had a splendour last season where they even won a couple of tournaments. But this season everything has been on a downward spiral.

It started with skipper Vaa Apelu Maliko leaving for France and changes in the team led to the team just gathering two or three points per tournament. An analysis of the team’s performance this season showed that their best outing was in Dubai.

What possibly has gone wrong in a team that showed so much promise? Will Lakapi Samoa convene a board meeting like they did with the Manu Samoa XV? Will we get to have a new coach?

Other teams in the circuit have chosen to invest in the team, pouring in money for player contracts, development, and setting up local competitions to get the best team together. How much investment into players has been done locally?

Another thing that has been questioned is the selection of players. Are the right players being selected?

The dream disclosed by Muliagatele Brian Lima in 2022 was winning the Olympic gold medal. With the performance this year so far, that seems all but a pipedream.

There are still more than two months to choose an extended squad. There have been players who have been on the local scene, some even went for the Pago 7s. Get these players involved. There are more than two months to prepare an explosive team that could surprise the top teams.

They may not be ready for Madrid 7s but could surely make a difference in Paris. Let us forget about overseas-based players. Muliagatele showed it once by relying on local players only, let us get back there and involve them in the Olympic squad.

Moving forward, a local sevens series is needed that could be played over two or three months. Enough competition would ensure that the local teams and players are training at a very good standard, good enough for the national team.

There should also be a focus on taking the players in the squad to tournaments in neighbouring countries. The New Zealand sevens teams, Australian teams, even Spain, Belgium, and Germany travel to Fiji to play in at least three tournaments.

For this to happen, investment is required from Lakapi Samoa and the government as well. Rugby is just not a sport, it is also a pathway to better employment. Players also need to be contracted with salaries matching the government scale.

This nation stops when our national team is playing. How have we come to a time when nobody wants to know anything about the results?

Nothing has been lost yet, there is time to build.