The England v Samoa match was probably not a game that would garner much attention as, to be honest, the Samoans did not live up to expectations in this tournament. They were high, because the Samoans were able to apply to PK this time the former players of other national teams, who are no longer needed by them. Despite this addition, the “Manu Samoa” team did not perform much better than usual.
England, on the contrary, even though it predicted tough matches before PK, has led all the matches to a winning end, including the first match against Argentina, in which the English remained in the minority from the very beginning of the game for the whole game.
Interestingly, Manu Tuilagi, who comes from a legendary Samoan rugby family and was also born in that country, but has been living in England from an early age and qualified to play for the English team as a local player, started in the England team. Tuilagi had never played against Samoa before.
In the very first minutes, both national teams had opportunities to create good attacks, but the first touchdowns were scored by the English when Tuilagi was put at the head of the attack by Ollie Chesum. Owen Farrell then stepped up to take the spot-kick, and if the captain had scored, he would have overtaken the legendary Jonny Wilkinson as England’s top scorer, but Farrell was off target.
Lima Sapoaga wasn’t accurate either, who didn’t take advantage of an advantageous position and a good opportunity to reduce the difference to two points. Farrell, on the other hand, realized his first chance to score a penalty kick and became the England national team record holder.
Samoa, guaranteed to be their last game of the tournament, were not going to back down and were under no psychological pressure, so My Samoa played a safer game and were rewarded as Nigel Ah-Wong scored a touchdown and Sapoaga kept the margin to a minimum. That wasn’t all either, because the Samoans went forward in large forces, without thinking about defense.
That the Samoans can play and play beautifully has always been known, but they have not always succeeded. In this case, when it was necessary to play for fun, it succeeded and Nigel Ah-Wong caught a very long and accurate pass at the end of the scoring zone, knew how to navigate the space and forced the ball to the ground.
It is interesting that, although the English had a six-point deficit, the initiative of the game was completely in the hands of the Samoan national team and they forced the ball into the scoring area two more times. True, if in the second case Ah-Wong’s third touchdown followed his run out of bounds, then before that Duncan Paia’s touchdown was nullified after a very questionable referee’s decision, which, moreover, was made after the field goal had already been kicked.
The English, it must be said, came up short, including their last desperate attempt to grab the lead when they opted to go for a touchdown rather than kick a penalty late in the half. The ball was lost forward and it was clear that Steve Borthwick’s team were certainly not ready for that.
In the second half, the English played more lively rugby, but the Samoans scored the points by converting a penalty. This prompted the English to go forward and try for a touchdown, but Samoa shone not only in attack but also in defense and this led to a nervous game and a bit of chaos in the Samoan end zone, but moments later Ollie Chesum’s second possible touchdown was disallowed because the referees in his actions saw double movement.
At this point, the referees’ role in managing the game was even greater as they disallowed another England touchdown following Maro Itoje’s forward pass. True, in order not to leave the situation completely empty, Owen Farrell took a penalty kick. However, when Farrell had the next opportunity to hit the goal, he did not orient himself in time and missed the moment of making the shot.
On the other hand, 15 minutes before the end of the match, the Samoans, in the person of Tumua Manu, earned a completely unnecessary and stupid yellow card (a tackle on a player who was in the air, without the ball) and this guaranteed an extremely difficult match for the Oceania team, as the English went forward with great strength , but the Samoans were able to drag the match, gain time and thus prevented the English team from immediately using this majority.
Veteran 36-year-old substitute Danny Kerr was quick to pick up the ball from a scrum and run through the defense to close the gap but Farrell had already put England in the lead.
In the remaining part of the game, Samoa could regain the lead, but lost the ball three times in the decisive moments, but the English knew how to take time and, as soon as 80 minutes were counted on the scoreboard, immediately send the ball out of the field.
England celebrated their success, but given the potential and ambition of this team, the performance they put in on the pitch was inexcusably poor. On the other hand, due to their indiscipline, as has already happened more than once, Samoa failed to take advantage of a very good opportunity to beat one of the big teams.
There is only one match left in subgroup D, but it is quite important, because tomorrow in the match between Argentina and Japan it will be determined which of the national teams will take the second place in the group and will have a chance to play in the quarter-finals.
England – Samoa 18:17 (8:14)
Touchdowns: O. Chesum (9), D. Kerr (73) – N. Ah-Wong (22, 29)
Goals: O.Farrell (74) – L.Sapoaga (24, 30)
Penalties: O.Farrell (18, 58) – L.Sapoaga (48)
My Dropsites:
2023 Rugby World Cup Group D
#TeamSUNZP1.England4400182.Argentina320193.Japan320194.Samoa410375.Chile40040
2023-10-07 17:54:00
#Embarrassing #win #England #play #badly #pull #win #Samoa
