For the neutral spectator this turned out to be a exciting match, although Samoa had the first half sorted the USA Eagles came back in the second half to put the frighteners on the Samoans. However, the Samoans some how hung onto their fragile lead in the end and with only fourteen men.

Samoa, have reached the quarter-finalists of the Rugby World Cup twice in the past but not this time as they took losses form South Africa (59-7), Tonga (19-15) and England (44-22). So unfortunately it is bye-bye Manu Samoa.

On a cold wet and windy night in St. Etienne Samoa showed they meant business attacking from the start, scoring three first-half tries through Lome Fa'atau, Alesana Tuilagi, Kane Thompson, with Loki Crichton hitting 10 points with the boot. The Samoan discipline left a great deal to be desired throughout this match especially when they have the ball skills to produce exciting play and they revert to underhand tactics, well they let themselves down badly.

USA looked game shy after their enforced 14-day fixture break between matches and looked out of it at half time being 22-3 down. However, like another bird the Eagles rose out of the ashes in the second half just running out of time on the clock because to be fair to them, they were the better side in the second half.

The Samoans were more skilful at running the clock down than the Americans, something they need to learn that the clock still goes on when a scrum collapses unlike American Football when the clock stops just about every blooming second.

A most exciting player to watch for the USA was the Harare-born flyer Ngwenya , what a mover this lad is, side stepping past two Samoans to score in the right corner for 22-10. Hercus' second penalty gave USA a real chance. Samoa's Crichton's 70th-minute penalty seemed to put the game out of reach of the USA. However, the never say die Hercus' third kick gave hope to the Eagles, together with, the sin-binning of Samoan replacement Silao Vaisola Sefo for a late challenge.

The Eagles went so close to overturning the Samoans in the last minutes of the game when Ngwenya almost got through before blind-side Stanfill muscled over at the death.


USA captain Mike Hercus: said "I think at the end we played really good. "We've really got in the habit of being slow starters. The spirit of rugby was there. Hopefully we entertained people."

Samoa (22) 25

Tries: Fa'atau, A Tuilagi, Thompson
Cons: Crichton (2)
Pens: Crichton (2)

USA (3) 21

Tries: Ngwenya, Stanfill
Pens: Hercus (3)
Cons: Hercus