Samoa beats NZ, wins USA 7s title

The Samoan Sevens rugby team is the winner of the USA Sevens tournament after beating New Zealand 26-19 in the final.

It was a nail biting final with the scored lock at 19-19 at full-time before Alafoti Faosiliva scored the winning try knocking over Tim Mickelson and Tomasi Cama for Samoa to win their first ever tournament since 2010.

Samoa started the match strongly with Faosiliva scoring the first try for them to lead 5-0 before Charles Piutau equalised for NZ for the game to be locked at 5-5.

A New Zealand mistake before half-time resulted in a Paul Perez try for Samoa to stretch their lead to a 12-7 at half-time.

Samoa started the game strongly in the second half with another try to extend their lead to 19-5 but NZ came back with two quick tries to force the game to 19-19 at the stroke of full-time.

With the siren already sounded it was Samoa who kept the ball alive before Faosiliva crossed for his winning try to beat NZ 26-19 in the final.

In the other game, the Digicel Fiji Sevens team has finished on the 3rd spot in the USA Sevens after beating South Africa 21-15.

Both sides scored 3 tries each but the difference was in the conversion where Metuisela Talebula converted all of Fiji’s 3 tries from Lepani Botea and captain Setefano Cakau scored a double.
 
Again like in past games, Fiji weakness was in defence where the first up tackle was not able to put the ball carrier in the ground.

Fiji lost to Samoa 14-12 in the semifinal.

After the USA Sevens, New Zealand leads the IRB Series standings with 92 points.

Fiji is still at second place with 87 points followed by South Africa on 76 points, England is on 74 points and Samoa is on 5th place with 69 points.

The next leg of the IRB Sevens Series will be held in Hong Kong on the 23rd to the 25th of March.


Story by: Dreu Vukailagi