ENR: Pacific Nations Cup (2)
Tonga had the privilege to island hop over to Samoa to kick start the second leg of the PNC pool stages last Friday evening. After a disappointing start to the tournament, Samoa were hoping for a better performance in front of their home ground. They may have been on their home turf, but the home fans were absent in numbers. In most of the fixtures of this tournament, we have only been offered one camera angle, so there may be hoards of fans I’m missing behind the camera, but filling out all sides of a single tier should be manageable, especially when the national team are playing their most popular sport.
In the first quarter of the game, Tonga looked unfit and out of shape, offering nothing more than one up runners and a flat, unimaginative backline. Samoa, already with a game under their belt, looked sharper and game ready, and around the twenty minute mark, they scored two trys in quick succession, dancing through a scattered Tongan defence. Samoa get to extend their lead as laziness at the breakdown haunted Tonga for their fourth penalty of the half compared to Samoa’s clean sheet. As the first half came to a close Samoa started to cough up a few penalties themselves, but Tonga, disappointingly, could do nothing with the advantages and trailed 17-0 at half time.
Tonga’s first attack of the second half was intercepted, their play being easily read by the Samoan defence. The intercepter was stopped, but the damage had been done. Scrambling to find order, Tonga were out of sorts, and Samoa’s winger, Tuitama, found himself against a lost front-rower to easily step past and score. The forwards were the next to add to the score sheet as a shift with the ball in the lineout allowed the Samoan maul to barrel over the line. The conversion was missed, leaving the score sat at 29-0. In a desperate attempt to avoid leaving the island without any points, Tonga successfully kicked the next penalty they were offered. They also began to play with more imaginative moves but lacked the depth in attack to execute them. Eventually, their first try came from a well worked lineout move, with 8-man, Inisi, wrapping round the back and wrestling his way to the try line. He would also go on to score their second try after supporting a line break. Individual brilliance can only get you so far in rugby, and that would be their last points of the game as Samoa continue to score two more converted trys. A patient, multi-phased build-up led to their first, and a comical final one occurred when, after a suspected knock on, both players stopped, awaiting the whistle. When it didn’t come, they restarted their engines for a race to the line.
After seeing what the whole of pool A has to offer, the standings after next weeks fixtures will most likely be Fiji on top, Samoa in second place with a rest week and Tonga last. I expect nothing more than a training run for Fiji as they travel to Tonga on Friday; home crowds can’t fix fitness and organisation in a week. Fiji has also had two weeks to fix their out-of-character inaccuracies that occurred against Samoa.
Samoa 43 - 17 Tonga
USA lined up for their first game of the tournament at home in Los Angeles. Visitors Canada had the challenging task of playing away after getting handily beaten at their home fixture last week against Japan. Eager to ease the pressure, Canada took their first chance at points and kicked a lengthy penalty from the halfway line. The score was then swiftly equalised and surpassed as the American winger, Mooneyham, received the ball out the back door and tumbled over the line from five meters out. Time was called on the conversion, and the score remained at 8-3. The USA was playing a simple game, working pods off the scrum half, which drew in the Canadian defence well enough that after four to five phases there was space on the wing for Mooneyham to score his brace. Canada, at this point, hadn’t held onto the ball for more than four phases and had barely ventured out of their half before encountering problems. It was two successive penalties from the USA that gave Canada their longest stint of possession and territory in the opposition half. After a held up try, Canada finally pulled off a move straight form the training paddock, playing an inside ball off the back of a maul where winger Benn wriggled through the US defence to score Canada’s first try.
As the half came to a close, there was a moment of brilliance from the American flyhalf, Carty. Following the standard pack-led attack, he received the ball and chipped over the defensive line to collect himself. A simple draw and pass put fullback Wilson in to score. Carty missed his third conversion of the half, and Canada are down by ten points at 18-8.
Canada’s loosehead, Martinez, only lasted five minutes into the second half due to a deliberate knock on while lying at the bottom of a ruck. Not comfortable with the points difference, USA opted to kick, stretching their lead to 21-8.
The problem with both the American and Canadian attacks is they lacked options or deception. They didn’t have play makers sitting in behind the pods so defending became easy, as the attacking intentions were clear. Both teams only played with the back line, or kicked, once they’d exhausted their forwards. The modern game needs deception in the attack to create uncertainty in the defence. This in turn opens up spaces to be exploited. The backlines failed to run holding lines that would create similar effects, defenders second guessing who they need to tackle.
USA bludgeoned their way to their final try, marking the last benefit of playing against a fourteen man Canada. The response came moments later from broken play, where Canada strung some offloads together to find a route through a scattered US defence. The rest of the game passed scoreless, but not for want of trying. Both teams came within inches of their opposition try lines, but spirited defence kept them at bay.
USA 28 - 15 Canada
USA got the win, but their performance hasn’t convinced me that they can succeed in Japan this Saturday. Japan are now playing the contemporary game, where as the North American teams are still stuck in a methodology that looks like its been plucked from the mid 2010’s. Canada, having lost both of their games, will go on to play in the fifth place play off against, probably, Tonga. A game in two weeks that I’ll watch so you don’t have to. If you only have time for one of the two game this weekend I’d suggest Japan vs USA over Tonga vs Fiji.
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