They’ve done what many people thought couldn't be done. The Manu Samoa has defeated the high-flying Fijians, 18-13, in a tough battle at the ANZ Stadium in Suva on Saturday.
In what was arguably Manu Samoa’s best performance this year, the men in blue gave their all against the highly-rated home team.
And they had to do it tough with two players sent to the bin on different occasions.
“I take my hat off to our players,” captain David Lemi said.
“We knew coming to Fiji was going to be very hard, especially playing in front of their crowd but the boys got stuck in there today, gave it their all and we came away with the result we wanted."
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“You know it was a tough game and Fiji was good but I’m just happy that we’ve won. We’ve improved in some areas we wanted to work on but there is still a lot of work left to be done before the World Cup.”
One of the areas they will be looking at is scoring tries. Flyhalf Tusi Pisi kicked six penalties to secure the win.
Pisi kicked five first half penalties to give Samoa a 15-5 lead at halftime and added his sixth penalty, Samoa's only points of the second half, to finish with six goals from seven attempts.
The win lifted Samoa to the top of the threeteam Pacific division in the six-nation tournament after their opening draw with Tonga.
Fiji had a win over Tonga and a loss to Samoa, while Tonga ended with a draw and a loss.
Japan have won the North American section with two wins ahead of the match later Saturday between the United States and Canada.
Three players received yellow cards at Fiji's National Stadium, including Samoa captain Lemi, his teammate Fautua Otto and Fiji's Leone Nakarawa.
Pisi punished Fiji errors with penalties in the second, 16th, 25th, 28th and final minutes of the first half.
He missed one attempt in the 22nd minute of the second spell but landed another two minutes later to complete his team's scoring.
Fiji scored tries through center Nemani Nadolo in the 11th minute and winger Naplioni Nalaga in the 42nd. Nemani missed the conversions of both tries but added a second half penalty which briefly cut Samoa's lead to 15-13 before Pisi extended their lead with his final goal.
Defeat was a setback for Fiji ahead of next weekend's critical Oceania World Cup qualifying match against the Cook Islands. The winner of that match will take a place in Pool A at next year's World Cup alongside Australia, hosts England, Wales and another playoff winner.
The Cook Islands have never qualified for a World Cup but have a strong team, including players with Super Rugby experience
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