All Blacks v Samoa: the historic game that stopped a nation | Rajiv Maharaj

New Zealand’s first appearance in Samoa for an international match was ground-breaking, heart-warming and, at times, brutalIt’s a day the people of Samoa will never forget: the All Blacks playing Manu Samoa in Apia, a game many said would never happen, let alone in the professional era with Pacific Island rugby players scattered to the global economic winds of hefty contracts in Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. For the day, though, it was a game that stopped a nation. Maybe only the 1995 World Cup final in South Africa and Fiji beating the British Lions in Suva in 1977 come close in t…