Sport had a large role in the colonial life of Sāmoa and its worth reflecting on how it might have spared tragedy in the mandate had it been given the chance. These days Sāmoan sport - rugby and netball - is colonising Aotearoa, and to a growing extent Australia. It was not always that way.
Eighteen months after New Zealand forces invaded Deutsch-Sāmoa, the garrison left behind showed signs of ‘mental unrest’, finding life irksome and monotonous. Continual training and route marches were supplemented with swimming, boxing, blindfold boxing and cockfighting. Soldiers passed their time playing billiards and bowls. They started cricket but gave up as Sāmoans beat them, just as they had with bowls and billiards.
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