Samoa star Lima Sopoaga has issued an appeal to find a trusted kicking tee that he has used his whole career after it went missing during his side’s win over Chile at the Rugby World Cup. The former All Black who made his Samoan debut last month after switching international allegiance, featured in the 43-10 win in Bordeaux on Saturday, coming off the bench just before the hour mark. Get the latest World Cup news by signing up to our newsletter here.
Sopoaga went on to convert a try in the final play of the game but when he went to recover his tee after the full-time whistle, it had disappeared. Heartbreakingly, as the 32-year-old revealed in his appeal posted on X, formerly Twitter, he had used the apparatus since he was 14, taking it with him throughout his career.
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“Could whoever took my goal kicking tee from the field please give it back to me,” the heartbroken fly-half wrote. “I’ll even pay you for it. I’ve had it since I was 14 years old.”
In a later post, he said he thought the disappearance was unlikely to be down to a mistake, adding: “I left eye drops with it, came back to get them but only the eye drops were there”.
The appeal has been widely shared since it was posted after Saturday’s match, with the tournament’s chief communications officer Dominic Rumbles offering some free World Cup merchandise “for the safe return of Lima’s tee”.
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Sopoaga made his first appearance for Samoa in last month’s warm-up game against Ireland, with the win over Chile just his second showing for the side after qualifying on ancestry grounds.
He played 16 times for the All Blacks between 2015 and 2017, scoring 55 points, but his international career looked to have ended when he left the Highlanders to join Wasps in 2018. Three years later, he made the move to Top 14 side Lyon and has recently signed with Japanese second division outfit Koto Blue Sharks.