Tonga plan to continue their northern hemisphere rugby tour scheduled for this month despite Samoa’s recent decision to cancel their tour due to COVID-19 concerns.

Tonga Rugby Union general manager Peter Harding said the head coach, former Wallabies striker Toutai Kefu, would not be touring as he was still recovering from a violent home invasion in August.

Samoa announced on Wednesday that they would not be touring because strict national border policies would not allow local players to return home if they have traveled to countries affected by coronavirus outbreaks.

Healthspan Elite | Performer of the week

Healthspan Elite | Performer of the week

Tonga said on Thursday they believed their tour could continue despite travel issues during the pandemic.

The Ikale Tahi are set to face Scotland in the last week of October and England, the French Barbarians and Romania in November.

Harding said most of Tonga’s players are already based in the northern hemisphere.

Selecting players from Australia and New Zealand is said to be more difficult due to border restrictions from those countries with a side likely to be nominated later this week.

“Samoa made a very difficult decision,” Harding told Radio New Zealand.

“We’re not in their building, so we can’t really explain why they made this decision, but we understand, deeply understand the difficulties of putting this tour together.

“Honestly, he’s such an energy sapper, but we’re going to continue with ours and that’s the decision we made.”

The Samoans were due to play against Spain, Uruguay and Romania before meeting a selection of British Barbarians at Twickenham.

The Samoa union said in a statement it was unable to “guarantee the safety of any of our players and management during the campaign and the current state of government emergency measures are restricting the return of anyone within six months of contact with the virus.

Director General Faleomavaega Vincent Fepuleai said that “it was a major obstacle to the security of our borders. We accept the implications and the magnitude of the consequences that the pandemic can have for our small country with limited resources. “

Samoa head coach Seilala Mapusua said the decision to call off was the right one, even if it was difficult for players, fans and host teams.