Samoa reach quarter finals as Scotland fall short of Braveheart boilover

FURIOUS Samoa coach Matt Parish has roasted his side’s ill-discipline after they fell over the line into the quarter-finals with a draw against Scotland.

Matthew Wright dots down in the corner.

• Samoa 14 Scotland 14

FURIOUS Samoa coach Matt Parish has roasted his side’s ill-discipline after they fell over the line into the quarter-finals with a 14-14 draw against Scotland in Cairns.

The Bravehearts look set to shock the island nation in front of 4309 fans at Barlow Park when they took a 14-6 lead into halftime, but their more fancied opponents finally awoke from their slumber.

Samoa completed enough of their sets for second half tries to Matt Wright and Young Tonumaipea to level the scores, a final result that was enough to take them through to the knockout stage, where they will face Australia.

BJ Leilua (L) and Matthew Wright of Samoa celebrate after Wright scored a crucial try.

However, a disgusted Parish said his side had no chance of competing with the Kangaroos unless they improved all over the park, but in the same breath said they could compete if they put it together.

“Our problem is our errors. We made too many errors. We made too many last week, we made too many against New Zealand. When we don’t make errors we can compete against anyone in the world. And we will,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing Australia, Scotland, Tonga or New Zealand, you’ve got to lift for it and again the Scots came out here today and showed what it means to play for their country and they played well.

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“They probably out-enthused us for most of the game but to our credit, we hung in there in the tough times and were able to get a draw, which was enough to stay alive in the tournament.”

Samoa’s lack of intensity was easy to see early when Scotland shot out of the gates to score in the fifth minute.

Samoa fullback Tonumaipea failed to clean up a Danny Addy chip kick, leaving a trailing Lewis Tierney to jump on the crumbs for the opening try.

Scotland put in a brave performance and looked the winner for much of the match.

But the Bravehearts let Samoa back into the contest a few minutes later, giving away back-to-back penalties leading to Junior Paulo crashing over in the 11th minute.

Schoolboy errors littered the games of both side as they failed to field bombs, let dropouts go into touch and made simple mistakes, but the biggest brain fade was still to come.

Samoa centre Tim Lafai inexplicable attempted to offload 10m out from his own line, but only managed to spill the ball to Scotland backrower Frankie Mariano, who grabbed it and ran out wide to put his side in the lead.

Addy, who played smartly on the back of Luke Douglas and a forward pack making a mockery of Samoa’s size, kicked a penalty goal in the 17th minute to get the lead to eight, which it remained at the break.

Matthew Wright dots down in the corner.

The rain arrived in the second half and seemed to bring Samoa back into the contest as they improved their completion rate and a tiring Scotland began to drop their guard.

Samoa had ample chance to seal the win but errors at the crucial moment were their downfall.

Even minus Shane Toal and Dale Ferguson to concussion, the Bravehearts truly lived up to their name and fought to the final whistle.

Addy almost won the match for the Bravehearts late, shaving the left upright with penalty goal and field goal attempts from beyond 40m out, all with a suspected torn hamstring.

Despite Steve McCormack’s side failing in their quest to make the quarter-finals, it was efforts from the likes of his five-eighth which had him lauding the fight as one of the best in Scotland’s history.

“Danny shouldn’t have been in that second half. He’s had a lot of pressure on his shoulders this week, he’s played everywhere this World Cup and he’s got quite a bad hamstring. He shouldn’t have been on the field that second half and he opitimises what we’re all about,” he said.

“A lot was made last year of the draw against New Zealand and the effort in the Four Nations and the last World Cup, that for me today was, in perspective, one of the best performances Scotland’s had for a long, long time in regard to effort.

“If you think about the young squad we’ve got, first couple of results we’ve had, the resilience, the effort, spirit, the skill, the desire that this team showed here in every bit of adversity that we had, I don’t think anybody’s prouder than myself.”

SAMOA 14 (J Paulo Y Tonumaipea M Wright tries M Wright goal) drew SCOTLAND 14 (F Mariano L Tierney tries D Addy 3 goals) at Barlow Park. Referee: Ashley Klein.