Willie Mason savages Samoa coach Matt Parish as civil war heats up

The Samoan rugby league standoff is not going away with NRL great Willie Mason firing another bitter shot at coach Matt Parish.

Mason is of Tongan descent and represented the nation at the 2000 World Cup. The former star has come out strongly against the besieged coach as the rugby league world hopes to turn Samoa into a rugby league powerhouse.

Watch The 2021 NRL Telstra Premiership Live & On-Demand with No Ad-Breaks During Play. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

After a civil war was ignited when Matthew Johns dropped a bombshell by revealing he and Andrew wanted to coach Samoa alongside Sonny Bill Williams, Samoan footy bosses came out strongly in support of their current coach Matt Parish, despite having lost eight of their last nine matches.

But the plot thickened earlier in the week as current and former Samoan players trashed the current regime with several of the NRL’s biggest stars refusing to step out for the nation with Parish at the helm.

A group of current and former players even signed a letter to Samoan Prime Minister Tuiaepa Sailele Malielegaoi demanding Parish and his coaching staff be sacked – a development first revealed by The Daily Telegraph earlier this week.

A letter written to the Prime Minister of Samoa.Source:Supplied

34 current and former players signed the letter.Source:Supplied

Parish hit back arguing the players were “coerced” into signing it and the Prime Minister dismissed the letter as “disrespectful”.

Players went public with their concerns earlier in the week, including Mason, who said on his podcast The Take with Willie Mason that “if they f*** this up, it would be catastrophic”.

Mason doubled down in the latest edition of his show, demanding that Parish fall on his sword.

“Players are talking, whether it’s former players like Nigel Vagana or Tony Puletua, Iosia Soliola, Reni Matua, players who have a lot of credibility in the game, they have not said one good word about Parish,” Mason said.

“Everything we touched on last week is exactly how it is. The disrespecting of the culture, the payments, it’s just reiterated everything we said last week. Guys like Iosia Soliola and Nigel Vagana, they don’t say much. When they say s*** it carries a lot of weight. They’re really respectful people.

“People like Big Papa, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘I would play if he wasn’t the coach’. And they know the Samoan team is onto something special but something needs to happen board-wise and coach-wise. You change that coach and there would be a plethora of Samoan young kids and superstar players. This is not part-time footballers anymore back in 2008 or 2013.

“In 2021 you’re going to get the real deal, Big Papa, Junior Paulo, Payne Haas – to name a couple of names. RTS, Crichton, To’o, Luai, Brown, these guys are f***ing superstars in the NRL, they want to play for Samoa, they just need a coach. So just sack him or you need to stand down.”

The NRL 360 took a stab at a Samoan side.Source:FOX SPORTS

Co-host Iain Byrne said the Johns’ offer was clearly genuine as they want rugby league to thrive.

Mason agreed, adding the boom in Polynesian players playing rugby league showed “where the game is going and where our strengths lie”.

“Players right now would play for nothing in the Samoan team and Tongan team and Fiji – all the Pacifics – because now the contracts are pretty big,” he said. “So if you’re on about $8-900,000 or a mill or $500,000, you’re not worried about 10 grand here or there, it’s not like that any more.

“When I was playing, and because the Pacific game hasn’t picked up, our option was to play for Australia. It was the pinnacle in the 2000s to play for Australia and that was it. If you want to be one of the best players, you play for New Zealand or Australia.”

Mason added that while he played 24 Tests for Australia and 13 Origins for NSW, representing Tonga was “one of the highlights of my career”.

Willie Mason in a 2000 Rugby League Cup match against PNG.Source:Getty Images

Mason played three games for Tonga in the 2000 World Cup when he was 19.

“Because we’re brought up here, we’re brought up in the Australian way,” Mason said. “That’s what Nigel Vagana said. You connect back with your roots and your culture. Even if you can’t speak the language, you know where you’re coming from. That’s the education you get in these camps.

“And Parish was not embracing this stuff and that’s why the players are very passionate about playing for Samoa or Tonga. (Tongan coach) Kristian Wolff embraces everything. Wears a tupenu, all the traditional stuff, that kind of stuff he embraced and the players love him.”

Mason hit out at Samoa coach Matt Parish.Source:Getty Images

Mason finished, saying he couldn’t believe that Parish hadn’t stepped aside amid all the criticism from players.

“If I was Parish and I’d been there for two World Cups, watching all this s*** unfold in the past two weeks, I’m going to stand down because I’m holding this nation back,” Mason said. “I’m going to stand down. I’m going to give it to a Nigel Vagana, I’m going to give it to the Johns brothers, Iosia Soliola, all these guys who love Samoan Rugby League. Give it to them.

“I’d never want to go into camp with all this s*** being said about me, knowing full well that they don’t like me. I’d be highly embarrassed. It’s not like he’s getting paid a s***load of money, I don’t want to hold back this nation any more because obviously the players aren’t playing for me.

“Have a 26 per cent winning record, obviously no one wants to play, I can’t drag any players here, they’ve f***ing signed a petition to get me out – how much more of a hint can you not take?”

Mason said the talent available to Samoa is “unbelievable” but if they continue down the same path, they will get the same result that has seen the side win just one of its last nine games.

Source: Read Full Article