ISLANDERS’ PARADISE
SUNDAY 6 OCTOBER 1991 is a day etched into the memory of Welsh rugby fans. It was the day that the country played its first World Cup match on home soil, in front of a packed Cardiff Arms Park. Standing in the way of Ieuan Evans’s men was a Western Samoa side that hadn’t even been deemed good enough to invite to the inaugural 1987 tournament.
Peter Fatialofa, Samoa’s captain and loosehead prop, was a larger-than-life character and, as one of Auckland’s senior players, was an effective recruiter amongst the talented group of secondgeneration Samoans playing rugby in and around the New Zealand city.
Apollo Perelini, whose first name was chosen because he was born on the day the Apollo 11 crew began their journey to the moon (it’s common in
