A former Manu Samoa coach and current Member of Parliament has criticised the ill discipline shown by rugby players during last weekend's 35th Digicel Marist Sevens International Tournament.

Aleipata-Itupa-i-Lalo M.P. Faleomavaega Titimaea Tafua told Samoa Observer in an interview on Wednesday that there is always a line drawn to separate a player from a referee which coaches should always emphasise to their players. 

"As a coach, you have the role to protect that and it's that role which protects the players through your advice before they go out into the field, especially on their discipline," he said. "We also have to protect the referees as coaches by doing that and that's paramount, you cannot cross that line with the referees.

"There are rules of the game that has always been there for all the players to abide by because whatever accusation but if he touched the referee then the rules and regulations and penalties are in place to penalise the player."

Asked for his view and advice as a former coach at last weekend's incident, Titimaea slammed the player's behaviour and urged their coaches to get them into line. 

"There is something wrong with that player, maybe something's wrong up in his brain and I don't mean this to complain. For coaches, you will always question every part of the game and you have to make sure your players understand very well, the boundary between them and the referees. It is never allowed for any player to touch the referee."

Faleomavaega then appealed to Lakapi Samoa to continue to raise awareness about the rules and policies of the game including player penalties. 

"My advice is if the player indeed touches the referee then there are rules to discipline and penalise the player," the M.P. said. 

Faleomavaega coached the Manu Samoa 7s at the H.S.B.C. International 7s Series winning the Wellington and Hong Kong leg in 2007 and also coached the Manu Samoa XV to a first-ever win over the Australian Wallabies in Australia in 2011. He also coached Manu Samoa when it qualified for the 2019 World Cup in Japan and is a certified and senior referee of the Samoa Referees Association. He also captained the first Samoa team that played against Wales in 1989.

Meanwhile, there are concerns that the Steering Committee of the 35th Digicel Marist Sevens International Tournament has reversed its decision made last weekend when they disqualified last year's defending champions Tama Uli of Savai'i from the rest of the Marist tournaments this year after an overseas referee was hung by his collar by one of the team's players.

President of the 35th Digicel Marist Sevens International Tournament, Pouniu Peter Schmidt, said in previous interviews said that the conduct of the Tama Uli players killed the spirit of the tournament and the judicial committee had made a reasonable decision.

"It wasn't just the one player who collared the referee it was the rest of the team because they threw swear words in front of the referees too and it all comes down to the management of the team," he said. "The whole thing just killed the good spirit of the tournament and it didn't look nice because this was not just one of those domestic tournaments, it was international.

"Discipline is one of the main ethics we stressed to all the participating clubs prior to the commencement of the tournament."

Pouniu said the disqualified former champions were still given their prize money for fourth place in the tournament despite the team being disqualified. It will be up to the Steering Committee when the disqualified team can return to the tournament including next year's event.

Video footage of the incident went viral on social media last Saturday and showed physical and verbal exchanges during the cup quarterfinal match between Tama Uli and the Fiji Development team. Kerisimasi Savaiinaea, who's made regular appearances in the Manu 7s team, grabbed the collar of an Australian referee on the field after they lost to Fiji.