Mate Ma'a Tonga will play their first test series in England this year. England Rugby League has confirmed they will host Tonga in three tests in St Helens on October 22, Huddersfield on October 28 and Leeds on November 4. The test series will be the first in which England has hosted a Pacific nation.
A new governing body for Tongan rugby league should be in place within six weeks.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) this week dismissed the Tonga National Rugby League s (TNRL) appeal against its expulsion from the International Rugby League in March last year, after a long-running battle over governance, money and a threatened player boycott.
An invitational Tongan team upset Australia in November 2019.
Photo: Photosport Ltd 2019
IRL Secretary General Danny Kazandjian was pleased with the decision but saddened it had got to this point. It was completely unnecessary that it had to go to court he said. .the factual record shows unequivocally that, at every stage of this disagreement or dispute, we held out olive branches to the former Tongan Rugby League organisation (TNRL), attempting to work collaboratively with them and unfortunately at every stage the record is clear that they rejected those overtures.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland
Photo: AFP
The Tonga National Rugby League (TNRL) was expelled from the International Rugby League (IRL) in March, after a long-running battle over governance, money and a threatened player boycott.
The TNRL appealed against its expulsion before the Court of Arbitration for Sport this week.
Secretary William Edwards said he was comfortable with how the two-day hearing played out.
William Edwards.
Photo: RNZ Pacific/Koro Vaka uta I m comfortable that we will get a ruling that they didn t follow process but they only had one way of doing it and that was to get rid of us and I just can t see it. I just can t see whether we did so many things wrong, he said.