Samoan rugby officials have failed to attend the latest peace talks with their players and the game's powerbrokers because they "got the date wrong".
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Samoa lock Dan Leo revealed details as the simmering row between the players and their union over governance had taken another twist.
Leo alleged stalling tactics by his bosses, something he claimed they had a history of.
Samoan officials have failed to attend two meetings in five days to resolve a crisis that at one stage saw the players threatening to boycott this weekend's test against England in protest.
The first meeting they missed involved World Rugby (the International Rugby Board) officials and the International Rugby Players' Association (IRPA) and followed Samoa's win over Canada last weekend. The second was meant to happen yesterday at Samoa's hotel in London.
"We were notified about 24 hours ago that the SRU weren't going to send any representatives for what was the second of two meetings, after not turning up to the first one either," Leo told Planet Rugby.
"The excuse, in a personal email, was that they'd mixed up the dates of the meetings.
"In our eyes it's stalling tactics. They've done this in the past where they just ride out the storm, and their mentality is that no storm lasts forever, so they're going to ground."
The second meeting planned for yesterday was eventually scrapped because the involvement of World Rugby officials depended on the Samoan bosses being present.
World Rugby and the IRPA have been eager to see the issues aired in the right environment.
A Twitter campaign launched under the hashtag #SamoaUnited has gone viral and there is clearly goodwill for the Samoan players from their counterparts and the general rugby community, as well as other sporting circles.
"There's momentum behind this, but we need the SRU to come to the party," Leo told Planet Rugby.
"We want to talk about how we can move forward positively, but there's no platform for us to move forward at all until we can get into some sort of dialogue with the SRU.
"At this stage, we've had none.
"There's been positive meetings with the IRB and with the IRPA. We know how we want to move forward with this, but until they [the SRU] meet us we're still at square-one.
"We don't know what the plan was, because we didn't have any correspondence from them. About a week ago they told us we'd be hearing about who they would send to the meetings, and we didn't hear from them again."
Leo said Samoan officials had asked to meet after the tour but with the team disbanding after the England game and players scattering to their various clubs and bases around the world, that would be difficult.
He said it was also crucial to have World Rugby and IRPA representatives involved, and that took planning.
"The SRU are quite happy with it dragging on for months, even years," he said.
"This is what they've done in the past after 2011, when all this came up after the Rugby World Cup, and they survived. They don't respond to anybody.
"In terms of where that leaves us as players, we don't know. We didn't want this to drag on into the All Blacks game or the next World Cup, but if it does, it does."
Samoan players claim they were threatened with losing their World Cup place next year and their historic clash with the All Blacks in Apia ahead of the tournament if they did not take the field against England at Twickenham.
