Samoa have described Saturday\u2019s Rugby World Cup match against England, the hosts and favourites, as \u201cmission impossible\u201d; it would rank as one of the biggest ever upsets should they somehow manage to beat the Red Roses.<\/p>\n
Samoa are 14 places below England in the world rankings and, while the Red Roses have been fully professional for more than five years, Samoa are yet to introduce full-time contracts. In their opening matches of this tournament England beat the USA 69-7<\/a>, while Samoa lost 73-0<\/a> to Australia.<\/p>\n The different situation the teams find themselves in is something the England players are aware of and the back-row Abi Burton, who will make her World Cup debut, hopes this tournament will boost opportunities for every nation. \u201cThey are inspirational women,\u201d she said of Samoa. \u201cI think the different types of women who have come to this World Cup is unbelievable but they all come because they love rugby.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is one thing we all share. It\u2019s really special for them to be able to share their story and it does make you reflect on what we have and how much rugby has grown in this country. How we have the opportunities we do.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully this World Cup will give everybody more opportunities in their nations. Hopefully it will go up a level here, up a level in Spain, up a level in Samoa. That is what we want to do. We want to make it go up another level for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n The Red Roses have not gone with a full-strength team in Northampton, making 13 changes<\/a> from their opener. This was always the plan; the head coach, John Mitchell, communicates his team news to players as early as possible and the thinking is to give everyone game time early in the tournament. The squad will have achieved that bar one player, Holly Aitchison, who has been injured and will hope to make an appearance against Australia next Saturday.<\/p>\n No matter who is on the team sheet, England have been formidable in their 28-game winning streak but the attack coach Lou Meadows says there is still more to come. \u201cI would hope to think there are always things you haven\u2019t seen because we are constantly trying to improve and test our game, tactically switch up as much as possible,\u201d Meadows said, before singling out the fly-half Helena Rowland.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s special to work with someone like Helena and the rest of the back line are electric, as well as our very mobile forwards. We\u2019ve got an opportunity here to really play the picture in front of us.<\/p>\n Fa\u2019asua Makisi of Samoa was overwhelmed to see her mother in the crowd at their first match. \u2018I couldn\u2019t believe she was here,\u2019 she said. Photograph: Paul Harding\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not really seen a lot of what Samoa can do because WXV [the tournament held outside World Cup years] footage doesn\u2019t reveal too much. They have worked really hard on their game and we are really excited for the opportunity they have got in this tournament. I think it is going to be an opportunity again for us to test another side to our game to prove we can physically dominate still against a side like Samoa but equally how we can adapt to the pictures in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n The two nations have played each other only twice before, with England winning on both occasions: 53-0 in 2005 and 65-3 in 2014. Marlie Packer and Natasha Hunt are the only two players in England\u2019s matchday 23 to have played Samoa, in the victory at the 2014 World Cup. None of the Samoa players have faced the Red Roses.<\/p>\n Mitchell said for nations such as Samoa it is less about what the scoreline says and more about the performance and pride of playing for their country on a World Cup stage. Nothing epitomised that more than the viral video of Samoa\u2019s Fa\u2019asua Makisi after the team\u2019s loss against Australia.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Makisi\u2019s mother, Petra, flew from New Zealand to surprise Makisi, getting off the plane at 8am and travelling straight to the Pool A match in Manchester. The player\u2019s reaction was complete shock and she burst into tears when she spotted her mum post-match.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was holding up a flag behind her and I screamed,\u201d Makisi said. \u201cIt was a natural response. I couldn\u2019t believe she was here in England and I fully had an emotional breakdown in front of the crowd.<\/p>\n Lou Meadows speaks to the media, alongside Abi Burton. \u2018We are constantly trying to improve and test our game,\u2019 said the attack coach. Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/p>\n \u201cMy mum has been my rock and she\u2019s been one of the main reasons I\u2019ve been able to come here and to see her here was really overwhelming, but happy tears for sure! Being the type of supporter my mum is, she will be here for all of our pool games and until we go home.\u201d<\/p>\n Samoa also believe this tournament is an opportunity for the players to be offered a chance to play for Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby teams. Bella Milo, the Samoa defence coach, said: \u201cI think for them to be able to gain experience overseas would be awesome. In order for us to play at that level, being able to play against players from here and also being able to be looked after in terms of a PWR contract and the facilities they have, I think our players would be able to continue to grow and hopefully bring those opportunities back to Samoa.\u201d<\/p>\n England are expected to win but the margin will become the focus as the game goes on. The record score at a women\u2019s Rugby World Cup is the Black Ferns\u2019 134-6 victory over Germany in 1998. It is one record that the competition will not want to see broken on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samoa have described Saturday\u2019s Rugby World Cup match against England, the hosts and favourites, as \u201cmission impossible\u201d; it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-104868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}