Pacific Challenge to kick off in March

Fiji will host the World Rugby Pacific Challenge from 8-21 March.

The tournament will be played at the ANZ Stadium in Suva, with match days on 8, 12 and 17 March with the final on 21 March.

Four teams will take part in the round-robin competition. Hosts Fiji Warriors will be joined by their island neighbours Tonga A and Samoa A along with Junior Japan.

World Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “The Pacific Challenge is a key developmental tournament, which creates a quality competition pathway for our high performance investment unions.

“The Pacific Challenge helps local and academy players get beneficial game time, exposure to a high performance tournament environment and potentially attract the attention of the national team coaches.”

Details on where rugby fans can watch the event will be announced in due course. Keep up to date on all World Rugby tournaments on Twitter @worldrugby.

Between 2012-2015 World Rugby invested £16 million in Pacific Islands rugby through development, regional tournaments and high-performance programmes. This funding is aimed at raising performances and providing the necessary infrastructure and support to continue to compete at the highest level.

(Source: http://www.worldrugby.org/news/134421)