Peter Fatialofa

Peter Fatialofa (born April 26, 1959, Auckland, New Zealand—died November 6, 2013, Apia, Samoa) was a Samoan rugby player who captained the national team of Western Samoa (now Samoa) in 1993 in its first rugby union international match.

Fatialofa was born in New Zealand and spent part of his childhood with his father in Western Samoa before returning to Auckland. He played club rugby for Ponsonby and then, over an eight-year period (1984–92), 72 games for Auckland, which during that period became one of the great provincial teams in world rugby.

Fatialofa—nicknamed “Peter Fats”—first played for Manu Samoa, Western Samoa’s national team, on its 1988 tour to Wales and Ireland. At the time, he was a 265-pound (120-kg) furniture mover whose specialty was pianos, but he proved a powerful scrummager and a formidable opponent with the ball in hand. He was appointed captain of the team in 1989 and led the country through the qualifying rounds and into the 1991 World Cup, played in Britain and France. It was then that Samoan rugby won recognition by beating Wales and Argentina and losing only to Australia (the eventual cup winners). Fatialofa and his team advanced to the quarterfinals, where they lost to Scotland.

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Like their counterparts in Fiji and Tonga, Samoans had begun rugby union play in the 1920s and quickly took to the physical, confrontational aspects of the game. But progress was spasmodic and depended a great deal on interaction with New Zealand, traditionally one of the game’s great powers. In the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987, Fiji and Tonga both qualified for the tournament, but Western Samoa did not. Consequently, Samoans put considerable effort into preparation for the 1991 tournament. It involved “calling home” players such as Fatialofa, who was living in New Zealand at the time.

That tournament paved the way for Western Samoa’s first international competition with New Zealand, on July 31, 1993. The contest, at Eden Park in Auckland, represented a coming-of-age for the islanders and the culmination of the gradual rise of the Pacific island team from comparative obscurity to a place alongside the major rugby union-playing nations. Fatialofa was the team’s star and captain in the prestigious South Pacific provincial tournament and then during the nine-match tour to New Zealand that culminated in the game at Eden Park. Although Western Samoa lost 35–13, its play on tour earned widespread praise.

Fatialofa retired as a player in 1996. He returned to his furniture-moving business, Fats Enterprises, but in 2012 he was hired to coach the Samoan women’s national team. His autobiography, Fats: Peter Fatialofa and the Manu Samoa Story, was published in 1996.