New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nAfter 90 minutes in the sheds, the two teams resumed with the game still very much in the balance.<\/p>\n
However, after the delay Samoa were able to pick up where they left off, scoring three tries in the final 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Given they won by more than 12, Samoa are assured of a spot in the final in a fortnight\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
The huge margin makes life difficult for their opponents though. Tonga will need to beat New Zealand by 17 or more next week to progress to the final.<\/p>\n
It was a brutal battle, particularly in the first half, with Samoa showing their intent early by laying on some bonerattling hits.<\/p>\n
Jeremiah Nanai\u2019s tackle on Tongan centre Tolu Koula inside the first 90 seconds set the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been legally violent,\u201d Andrew Voss said on Fox League.<\/p>\n
Later in the first half, Junior Paulo levelled out Tonga hooker Soni Luke in a crunching tackle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is massive,\u201d Voss yelled after the hit. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt turned savage. The Samoans have teed off on the Tongans. They have been unrelenting,\u201d Mick Ennis said on Fox League.<\/p>\n
For Tonga, it\u2019s back to the drawing board as they need to save their Pacific Championships campaign next week.<\/p>\n
Samoa were well in control all game and Tonga never really looked threatening at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were blown away,\u201d Ennis said on Tonga.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was almost like Tonga started in gear two. They were on the back foot and couldn\u2019t find their rhythm,\u201d Cooper Cronk added.<\/p>\n
Originally published as Samoa break Test drought to book ticket to Pacific Championships final in bizarre match<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 95 minute lightning delay at Suncorp Stadium didn\u2019t dampen Samoa\u2019s spirits as they recorded their first Test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-241778","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\/241778","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=241778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}