Samoa’s Rugby League World Cup team Toa Samoa has arrived in the English city of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England and on Thursday were treated to a civic reception.

Doncaster will be the training base for Samoa and will also host three RLWC games: France v Greece on Monday October 17; Samoa v Greece on Sunday October 23; and Papua New Guinea v Wales on Monday October 31.

When the Toa Samoa team arrived at the Mansion House on Thursday (Friday Samoa Time) for the civic reception, they were treated to a welcome ceremony led by local children doing a war dance with the former Samoan dual code international Freddie Tuilagi leading from the front.

According to reports from England, some of the visiting players then joined the English children and Mr. Tuilagi in some of the cultural performances, with Manly Sea Eagles prop Josh Aloiai taking off his shirt and joining.

On Tuesday this week the C.E.O. of the Doncaster Rugby League Football Club, Carl Hall told local newspaper Yorkshire Post that the town is looking forward to playing host to the Toa Samoa team.

"We put a lot of effort into the bid thinking we’d only get one game, but we’ve got three, which is huge,” Mr. Hall said. 

“We’ve lived and breathed it for the last three years, even when Covid was around we still did things over Zoom with the schools. We’ve just cracked on, that’s the motto here in Donny.

"We’ve got a civic reception for them [Toa Samoa] at Mansion House on Thursday, and a lot of stuff organised in the schools and around the community for them, just like the Kiwis and Cook Islands players did here in 2013.”

Mr. Hall added that the presence of the Samoans in Doncaster will have a “massive impact” on the city.

"We’ve already seen it from the 2013 World Cup – I get kids of 18, 19-year-old coming up to me saying they did the haka when the Kiwis came to their school.

"They’re still remembering that, so Samoa will have a massive impact on our city. They’ll embrace us and we’ll embrace them.

"We’ve done heaps in the schools already, there’ll be a whole lot of kids here for the games. 

“We’re trying to make it an event, we've invited the England band down to get a bit of an atmosphere in the stadium. We want everyone to come and enjoy it.

"Hopefully rugby league’s community game grows on the back of this world event. We want all the kids playing in five, 10 years time and we see the fruits of the labour.”