Samoa vs. Italy 2024
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This is live on TVNZ One and TVNZ Plus at 3:55pm Friday -
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Just watched it now. How did that Samoa side beat a full strength Italy side haha. Half those Samoan players were barely NPC standard, a huge boilover imo.
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@African-Monkey with 100% Samoan pride, cheehoo
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I think it must be a bit like the Drua home games effect in super rugby.
I couldn’t recognise any names in the Samoa side.
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@DaGrubster There's a lot of guys in that side that do play for Moana Pasifika and others that played a bit at NPC level, but they weren't even regulars down at NPC level and a fair few of those Moana players aren't regulars for them either. So there are a fair few familiar faces to NZ viewers, but yeah, a lot if them ain't test level. It's a fairly weak Samoan line up, so this result is huge, and as for the heat factor, Italy were the ones camped on the Samoan try line for a lot of the 2nd half, and a lot of these Samoan players play in NZ anyway, unlike the Drua who are a proper Fiji based side made out of locals mostly.
I must say, Samoa's results against 6 nations opposition in the last 9 months or so has shown massive improvement. They could easily have won against Ireland and England and competed well against Argentina at the world cup as well to go with a big upset against Italy today.
It shows the benefits of having Moana Pasifika playing in a professional comp.
