The Manu Samoa 7’s have reached the quarterfinal stages of the London 7’s after defeating Scotland 14-12.
Samoa looked a bit too casual at times in their first pool match against Japan, who managed to cross over for three tries. That’s exactly how Manu Samoa started the match with Scotland.
Jordan Edmunds of Scotland walked through 3 Samoan would be defenders to score possibly the softest try conceded in Samoan history.
60 seconds later Scotland’s leading try scorer, Jamie Farndale, got the shock of his life when the Samoan defence split like the Red Sea and he saw nothing but a try line in front of him.
Losing 12-0 at halftime. Head coach Muliagatele’s message was clear cut at halftime. Hold on to the ball.
That’s exactly what Samoa did. The Manu controlled all the territory in the second half and put Scotland under a lot of pressure
Winning the kickoff at halftime Owen Niue gained Samoa some good go-forward ball and Samoa found themselves in Scotland’s 22m zone.
Scotland turned the ball over but a tackle by Steve Rimoni saw Scotland lose the ball into the hands of Neueli Leitufia, who crossed over to score the first try of his career.
More pressure applied by the Manu forced a Scotland error. A loose ball was all Vaovasa Afa Su’a needed to pounce on it and power through to score his first in London. Afa Su’a was tackled without the ball by Alec Coombes and off Mr. Coombes went to the sin bin for 2 minutes.
With 7 men on 6, Steve Rimoni added another try to his scoring tally and tied the match up 12-12.
Another beautiful conversion from the sideline by Captain Melani Matavao with just seconds left on the clock gave Samoa the 14-12 lead they needed to scrape their way through to the Cup Quarterfinals.
Manu Samoa now face off against England to decide who tops Pool D.
