Popularity
Rugby union is the national sport of Tonga and as in the rest of Polynesia is a way of life. Though Tongans are passionate rugby followers, the small population base means that internationally, Tongan rugby continually struggles.
The International Rugby Board (IRB) estimates that Tonga has a total of 800 registered senior players and twice as many juniors.
Rugby is popular in the nation's schools and students from schools such as Tonga College and Tupou College, are regularly offered scholarships from New Zealand, Australia and Japan. Jonah Lomu, Viliami (William) 'Ofahengaue, Toutai Kefu, Finau Maka, Charles Riechelmann and Pita Alatini and George Smith are all of Tongan descent.
The money coming back from Tongan players playing rugby abroad is Tonga's second biggest export after sugar.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Union In Tonga
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)