Rugby: Rugby-Samoa finally show up but it’s too little, too late

LILLE, France (Reuters) – Samoa coach Seilala Mapusua said it was no coincidence that his team showed their best form in their fourth match in Saturday’s 18-17 defeat to England but it was their struggles earlier in the tournament that condemned them to an early World Cup exit.

Samoa, who had never beaten England in eight previous attempts, were leading with seven minutes to go until a converted Danny Care try rescued the 2019 runners up after a poor display.

“That was a tough one,” Mapusua said. “Proud is an understatement, we were pretty dominant in most facets. I thought we were able to expose some space, we managed to assert our game and stop England’s game – until about 70 minutes.

“I thought we deserved more today but there is a lot to look at in terms of getting here and our preparation. Once we’re here it’s not a coincidence that we are playing our best by the fourth game. We need to look at our programme internally and on the global scale so we can have these tough matches against Tier One teams. There is a lot of work to do.”

Samoa came into the tournament in a an upbeat state of mind after pushing Ireland all the way in a 17-13 defeat in their final warm-up game.

They looked a little rusty in dismissing Chile 43-10 in their opening game and then went down without much of a fight 19-10 to Argentina.

The big blow, however, was losing 28-22 to Japan when a red card for Ben Lam early in the second half left them up against it.

“Reflecting on it I’ve seen a win and two great performances but two games where we should have been better,” said Mapusua.

“We’ve shown that with a bit more time together we can be pretty confident at this level. But that’s a resource we don’t have with players scattered across the globe.”

Captain Michael Alaalatoa said: “That was the game we were looking for this whole World Cup. We’ve shown in glimpses what we can do and tonight we put in an 80-minute performance that we can be proud of.

“Some of the England players said that it’s the toughest game they’ve had so far. It’s good to know that as well.

“Tonight was our best performance by far and I am glad we were able to end on a high in terms of our performance, but absolutely gutted by the result.”

Samoa had two tries disallowed by the TMO on Saturday, unusually one of them after the conversion was taken, and Mapusua said he has long felt that match officials have an unconscious bias against Tier Two teams when playing Tier One rivals.

“I’ve asked the question in the past if there is unconscious bias… I believe there is, there has been in the past,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault, it’s just what I’ve seen in our game for the last I don’t know how many years.”

(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Toby Davis)