By Staff Writer
The Manu Samoa finally showed their true class early this morning, by coming so tantalisingly close, to toppling England in their final World Cup pool game.
The 17-18 loss was a nail biter ending that denied a famous World Cup victory for Samoa in France early this morning.
The one point loss to the Manu Samoa left the cheering fans on both sides, on the edge of their seats all the way to the final whistle.
Samoa wanted the win badly to restore severely bruised pride from earlier loses and hopefully secure an automatic qualification spot for the next World Cup.
Still they did bow out of the world tournament with heads held high knowing that the English rugby scalp was there for the taking but the ‘bounce of the ball’ was not in their favour.
The respected Rugby Planet media coverage of the clash, agreed with this write up of the Manu Samoa near upset of England….
World class Samoans
Given the number of world-class players at their disposal, there was always a feeling that Samoa had a performance in them, and they chose the match against England to deliver it.
They got many things right in this match, and a big part of that was selection.
Theo McFarland moved from lock to blindside flank and looked absolutely liberated in the relative freedom of the back row, causing havoc in the wide channels with dominant catches and smashing up in midfield with leggy carries and sympathetic offloads.
At 10, Sopoaga delivered a display that reminded all why he was once one of the most highly paid players in the Premiership and in the centres, Danny Toala’s crossfield kick to Nigel Ah-Wong for Samoa’s second try was the moment of the first half.
Best of all, they played dynamic heads-up rugby and reacted to the situations in front of them.
As they gained ascendancy in the collision so, their backs spotted weaknesses in the England defence; the propensity to play with their wingers too high at times and that gaping hole in the wide midfield channel.
As they gained momentum in carry, so confidence and belief increased proportionally and at times, they looked a completely different side to the stuttering team we saw against Argentina and others.
With Samoa out of the World Cup it is unclear what the national rugby union, Lakapi Samoa, has planned for the team to officially close out their international playing season.