{"id":241780,"date":"2025-10-26T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241780\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T10:14:09","slug":"samoa-defeats-tonga-34-6-to-qualify-for-pacific-cup-final-as-lightning-wreaks-havoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/241780\/","title":{"rendered":"Samoa defeats Tonga 34-6 to qualify for Pacific Cup final as lightning wreaks havoc"},"content":{"rendered":"

The genius of Samoa second-rower Jeremiah Nanai has launched his side into rugby league’s Pacific Cup final in a controversial 34-6 win over Tonga after lightning stopped play for 95 minutes.<\/p>\n

On an electrifying day for Test football in more ways than one, the crowd of 44,682 at Lang Park was the biggest in Australia for a Test not involving the Kangaroos since 50,077 watched a World Cup clash between France and Great Britain at the SCG in 1957.<\/p>\n

Thunder and lightning in the vicinity of the stadium took the players off the field 20 minutes into the second half with Samoa leading 16-0, as a hail storm also swept across the ground.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Play was paused for 95 minutes at Lang Park. (Getty Images: Bradley Kanaris)<\/p>\n

The crowd found cover, and the NRL estimated 15,000 stayed on to watch the rest of the match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Samoa halves Jarome Luai and Blaize Talagi sent winger Murray Taulagi in before Payne Haas and Chanel Harris-Tavita crashed over to seal a thumping win.<\/p>\n

Samoa, who ended a six-Test losing streak to deliver coach Ben Gardiner his first win at the helm, will now play in the Pacific Cup final on November 9 in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Tonga must beat New Zealand next Sunday at Eden Park by 17 points to get another shot at Samoa in the decider.<\/p>\n

Tonga prop Stefano Utoikamanu was wiped out of the match and next week’s clash with a concussion in the second minute after a high shot by Samoa counterpart Frank Molo, who was fortunate to stay on the field.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

The explosive start mirrored the electricity in the air in the build-up.<\/p>\n

The Samoan sea of blue and the Tongan sea of red transformed the stands with colour on one of the most momentous days in the 117-year history of rugby league.<\/p>\n

Samoa lock and co-captain Junior Paulo, who was magnificent, led the Siva Tau war dance before Tonga hooker Siliva Havili took charge of the Sipi Tau in response.<\/p>\n

Samoa scored early through centre Izack Tago.<\/p>\n

Nanai, who was also defensively superb, then did a Mark Waugh slips impersonation for the ages.<\/p>\n

Jarome Luai dinked a pinpoint lob bomb behind the Tongans, and Nanai raced through, dived forward to juggle the ball with his left hand and slide over to score.<\/p>\n

Nanai had another act of genius to come. The Samoans led 12-0 at the break and came out throwing the ball around with abandon.<\/p>\n

Nanai got the ball at the end of a razzle dazzle movement, looked up, weaved about and grubbered before racing through to ground the ball in an extraordinary piece of skill.<\/p>\n

Tonga had lost co-captain Jason Taumalolo on match eve with a knee injury and the early exit of Utoikamanu impacted their forward punch.<\/p>\n

Five-eighth Isaiah Iongi should have scored for Tonga in the second half but dropped the ball over the line as he chased a Soni Luke chip.<\/p>\n

Samoa fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was ruled to have accidentally bumped into Luke, but the call could have gone against him.<\/p>\n

Paulo, who bravely played on with an ankle injury, became the highest-capped Test match player for Samoa with 19 Tests in one of his greatest performances.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The genius of Samoa second-rower Jeremiah Nanai has launched his side into rugby league’s Pacific Cup final in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,651,144316,44096,144315,40044,13390,760,5993,85,17711,18559],"class_list":["post-241780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-storm","tag-lightning","tag-lightning-delay","tag-pacific-cup","tag-payne-haas","tag-rugby","tag-samoa","tag-sports","tag-storm","tag-tonga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241780","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=241780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}