Tama Samoa are through to the quarterfinal round of the World School 7s after remaining undefeated on Day 1 of the Tournament at the Pakuranga Rugby Club in Auckland New Zealand.
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The World Schools 7’s is an annual Rugby 7’s tournament that showcases the best under 18 7’s talent from around the world.
This year’s event showcases teams from Canada, New Zealand, Wales, Samoa, Fiji, Cook Islands, Australia and Japan.
The vision of the tournamnet is to deliver a high level professional event that provides players, coaches and management with high level competition experience, and an opportunity for the players to showcase their talents on the global stage.
Samoa’s U18 seven-a-side team or Tama Samoa, cruised through two pool matches and a Round-of-16 match to qualify for the quarterfinals tomorrow.
Samoa defeated Canada in their first match 41-17 before going to secure a convincing win over New Zealand Fiji 31-19.
The match was much closer than the scoreboard suggests. NZ-Fiji were only trailing by 24-19 before a brilliant individual effort try by Tepatasi winger Malakesi Puna sealed the deal for Samoa.
Puna pulled out all his tricks and beat five NZ-Fijian defenders on his way to the try line.
He put on a right foot step – one defender gone, a 360-degree spin move – 2nd defender gone, then ducked under a tackle – 3rd defender gone.
The ellusive wing then used pure speed to beat the 4th as he ran straight through the last defender to push Samoa’s lead to 31-19.
Tama Samoa’s toughest challenge on Day 1 came in their Round-of-16 match against the New Zealand Warriors where Samoa came through victorious edging past the Kiwis 22-14.
Tama Samoa is Coached by Lakapi Samoa Development Officer, Matamua Junior Salima with former Manu Samoa 7s star Reupena Levasa as Assistant Coach representing the Ministry of Education Sports and Culture (MESC).
The side will face off with Niue Nukututaha in the Cup Quarterfinals at 11:42am Sunday.
All matches can be found on the World School 7’s YouTube channel.
Teine Samoa
Teine Samoa, Samoa’s U18 girls side, unfortunately were not as successful on Day 1 losing both their matches.
Samoa’s first match with Wales was a nailbiter and Samoa was still in the game until the last 3 minutes.
Wales drew first blood to take a 5-0 lead but Samoa answered back with a scintillating try of their own.
Teine Samoa put together 15 offloads to score their first try and lead 7-5.
Wales scored just before halftime to take a 10-7 lead.
Teine Samoa held on throughout the second half until the floodgates opened and Wales crossed over for two tries in 2 minutes to put the Samoans away.
Teine Samoa’s second match was not as competitive losing to Central Storm by 22-0.
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