Transcript
CENSUS JOHNSTON: It's a huge honour. A lot of the guys here have been training since December for the tournament and it's a fresh start for them and playing against guys with a lot of international experience it's going to be a huge event for them. We're here to try and win the tournament and make our people proud.
VINNIE WYLIE: It's a one-off event, it's just the weekend, so how do you ensure the team utilises this tournament and gets something out of it that's going to help, be it the sevens team that are still on the World Series, who've got some players involved, and also Manu Samoa, a very important year coming up for that team too?
CJ: Any sort of exposure to top quality opposition is real good for Samoan rugby because we often don't get that sort of exposure or experience at this level and we've got to make sure that we turn up and give these Super teams, and teams like Panasonic and Toulon if we get the chance, to make sure we stamp our mark and make sure we get invited to these sort of tournaments again."
VW: You're obviously one of the elder statesmen of the team. There's a few of you: there's Tila Mealoi, the sevens captain, you've got Faalemiga Selesele, who is now focusing on fifteens - he was the sevens captain, there's some young players based in the islands, so there's quite a mix in the squad?
CJ: Yeah it's a good mixture. Over half of our squad is island based so it's a huge stage for them to get that sort of experience and learn off guys like Faalemiga and myself. We've been around for a while now and they can learn off us and take a lot of things out of this tournament and it's important for us going forward.
VW: You mentioned there's a possibility you could get to face Toulon. I see [former Manu Samoa winger] Alesana Tuilagi is lining up for them - anyone fancy running straight at him?
CJ: [laughing] Oh a couple of the boys have spoken about it - I think he's only just come out of retirement the last couple of weeks so we're pretty confident if we come up against him. He's been around Samoa for the last few years as well so I think a lot of the boys are excited to go up against him. They've always looked up to him and seen him play on TV so it's going to be a cracker of a game if we play him.
VW: And you've got the Blues, Crusaders and Reds in your pool. The Reds will obviously be on home turf and Blues and Crusaders, no doubt there's a few familiar faces in there you guys will recognise?
CJ: Yeah there are a couple but we're kind of focused on our set play. We've been working hard over the last few days. I arrived on Monday and doubled my stats of running - I don't think I've done that much running over the last year or so so we've all worked hard and we know what's in front of us for the next couple of days but we want to make sure we give this tournament a good go and try and make our people proud.