Eels<\/a> star had grounded the ball cleanly.<\/p>\n\u201cPinpoint kick metres out from the try line. And the athleticism of Brown on show, spins out of the tackle, does he get it to the line? Looks confident,\u201d Ennis said.<\/p>\n
Voss then pointed to a possible double movement: \u201cThere\u2019s a little creep forward. He hits the goal post padding, and has to find his way around the padding. That\u2019s his elbow on the line, not the ball you would say. He looks, then does a second movement. If they disallow this I\u2019m not going to blow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blocker Roach agreed: \u201cI think he was short, then he advanced the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the final say went the other way. \u201cI think there\u2019s a guilty look,\u201d Voss joked, before Ennis backed the decision: \u201cI think it\u2019s on the line, I think it\u2019s a try.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bunker ultimately awarded the try, giving New Zealand a 24-18 lead that they would not relinquish.<\/p>\n
Samoa\u2019s late chances go begging<\/p>\n
Samoa created two golden opportunities to level the game in the dying stages, both on the left edge.<\/p>\n
Deine Mariner and Brian To\u2019o each went close to scoring, but crucial handling errors denied them what could have been match-saving tries.<\/p>\n
\u201cCreate the chances, not one but twice… but bombed both,\u201d Voss said as Samoa\u2019s final attack broke down.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad it been a little bit lower, he would\u2019ve scored for sure,\u201d Roach added.<\/p>\n
Despite the heartbreak, the contest was hailed as one of the best of the Pacific Championships so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cA test match that leaves you wanting more of this Pacific Championship,\u201d Voss concluded as the final siren sounded.<\/p>\n
New Zealand will now look ahead to their next Pacific Bowl clash full of confidence, while Samoa will rue the missed opportunities that cost them a statement win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand have edged Samoa in a thrilling Pacific Test showdown, with a late Dylan Brown try sealing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-224712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224712","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=224712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}