Australia 53 – Samoa 16
The Aussie Under 20s blew Samoa away in a ratings game in Albany and go on to play France for the fifth ranking spot in 2015.
They played their best team with lock Jack Payne replacing Matt Philip and scrumhalf Angus Pulver starting ahead of Joe Powell.
First half
After penalties were swapped fullback Jonah Placid scooted through defenders and after the breakdown the ball was moved to the left and winger Andrew Kellaway scored with his legs cradled by his tackler above the chalk of the touchline.
The other winger Brad Lacey then had a turn after a tap penalty kick. When he sliced through and flyhalf Jack McIntyre converted his try, Australia was ahead 15-3 after 14 minutes.
Brad Lacey – had his best game
Australia had all the territory and it looked like it was going to be a long afternoon for the Islanders.
A couple of minutes later lock Tom Staniforth, who was a pest all day for Samoa, clamped onto maul ball. Kellaway scored again slicing through after the scrum in a set move. 22-3.
Cameron Skelton, playing for Samoa, was the pest for their side and was patting some of his Aussie mates on the back and elsewhere, and handbags were exchanged.
When Samoa got down in the Aussie 22 they got repelled a few times and lost the ball after a shaky scrum. Payne pounced on it and gave it to Lacey who was a tad faster. He hared away bouncing like a pin-ball off one tackler before passing inside to Kellaway on his own 40 metre line, and he scored 60 metres later under the posts.
Kellaway had scored three tries in 16 minutes and had the Kiwi commentators crooning.
Andrew Kellaway – had them crooning
Just before oranges Samoa took a penalty kick at goal just to have a rest from chasing Aussies and made the score 29-6 to Australia at half-time.
Australia was playing a high-tempo game throughout the team and were making Samoa put out fires all over the field.
Second half
Not long after the break Lacey burst through before passing to 12. Jim Stewart who had nothing but grass and the goal posts in front of him to make it easy to score the soft try.
Lacey got more meat after some pick and goes followed by slick passing from Pulver and MacIntyre to get him into the corner. Then Kellaway got his fourth when Stewart passed wide to him after a diagonal run. 13. Lalakai Foketi had his turn after a lineout and a Sean McMahon run.
With all the conversions here and there the score was 53-6 with 16 minutes still to go.
But Samoa pulled their socks up and showed some warrior spirit. Twice they had the Aussies defending their goal line and twice they scored to make the final tally 53-16.
Jim Stewart – excellent all-round game
The teams
Australia
Sometimes it seemed like the backs were showing off but their commanding performance was underwritten by some fine work from the fellows in front of them.
The Aussies had their best scrum on show and lost the pill only once— when it got kicked out as they were going on a scrum drive.
However their restarts were poor again; yet you’d think they’d improve after so much practice in the afternoon. And you could notice that Samoa, with their bench players on, performed better than the Aussies did with theirs.
Samoa
It looked like they had a let down after performing so well against the South Africans in their pool game. They were flat and seemed tackle-shy at times.
But at least they will be able to go into their next game boosted by how they finished against the Aussies.
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