Read a full match report for the Rugby World Cup 2011 Pool D game between South Africa and Samoa at North Harbour Stadium, Auckland, on Friday Sept 30.
Samoa finally produced the performance we all knew they were capable of but still it wasn’t enough to get past the doughty South Africans, who will need every day between now and their quarter-final in Wellington next Sunday to recover.
As for Samoa, their failure to garner a bonus point makes their progression to the quarter-finals extremely unlikely. The only permutation that would work for them is if Fiji beat Wales by 39 points, which would see Samoa through with the best points difference. However, if Fiji were to win by 62 points then they would go through with the Springboks.
A massively physical contest turned niggly at times and Samoa’s full-back, Paul Williams, became the first player to be sent off in the tournament after punching Heinrich Brussow late in the second-half.
However, the capacity 29,734 crowd loved every minute of a pulsating contest in which each side scored a try – the boots of Morne and Frans Steyn being the only difference.
«It was very tough, first-half we played alright but in the second-half we went to sleep and Samoa played with a lot of heart,» said Springbok captain Victor Matfield. «Somehow we kept them out. We have been working hard on our defence but we need to work hard on our attack, we wasted a lot of turnovers today.»
telegraph.co.uk