Tongans paint the Tron red
Fireworks came a night early in Hamilton, and it was Tonga who sparkled brightest, as they continued to live up to their Rugby League World Cup hype, with victory over Samoa.
With on-field efforts left to have the final say, after midweek madness on the streets, it was Tonga who proved too classy in a 32-18 Pool B victory at FMG Stadium Waikato, which has them building very well towards the big matchup against the Kiwis at the same venue next weekend.
With all the talk surrounding the men in red following all their bigname inclusions, there is an air of expectation on them, and although they tried to talk themselves down against their Pacific rivals going into the clash, they didn’t play like it on the paddock, powering to a 26-6 lead at the hour, before Samoa came back too late.
It left coach Kristian Woolf a delighted man, having seen solid improvement from the first-up 50-4 win over Scotland, as his team climb their ascent in what is a nicely worked draw.
‘‘I thought when we had to play tough we did that for the most part, and when we got the opportunity to play some footy we did a really good job too. Everyone’s spoken about our halves, and that’s where our inexperience is, I suppose. And they won that game tonight, they certainly out played the opposition halves, their kicking was exceptional, they built pressure in everything they did.’’
Conversely, Samoa coach Matt Parish was left to rue more sloppy errors, like which cost them against the Kiwis in their opening outing, as they now look resigned to facing the Kangaroos in a quarterfinal. ‘‘If
we can take what we do on the the training park onto the field we’ll be right, but unfortunately we’ve got a pretty young team, particularly in the decision-making area – a new spine ... unfortunately individual errors are killing us,’’ he said.
In was definitely an occasion to remember, though, whichever team you were barracking for. It was an atmosphere befitting nothing ever seen before at the stadium – a sea of blue and red splashed all around, flags of each nation flying proudly everywhere you looked, and hardly a vocal soul on their seat. No silliness, just passion, in the contingent of just over 18,000.
And the teams had spines tingling before a ball was even kicked, even before their respective challenges were laid. After the anthems were proudly pumped out, all players came together to form a circle in the middle of the park and kneel in prayer. Special, special scenes, unifying all, in what was understood to have been a move initiated by the players.
The goosebumps had barely disappeared when Tonga’s Sipi Tau and Samoa’s Siva Tau went toe to toe to send all and sundry to fever pitch. This was emotion aplenty, right here, and a hitup not even yet in sight.
The Samoan side featured a major late alteration, with fiveeighth Joseph Paulo left out – not injury related – and Jarome Luai handed a debut, with experience behind him.
And it was Luai who handed the early momentum to Tonga by taking William Hopoate in the air. The men in red made good with the invitation, opening the scoring in no NRL the 10th minute, as Ata Hingano grubbered through, Ken Maumalo made a meal of cleaning the ball up, and Michael Jennings scooped up to dive over.
Enjoying the bigger share of the ball, Tonga rolled forward with good rhythm, then shot out to a 14-6 lead by halftime, as Jennings bagged a double and became the country’s highest World Cup points scorer in history.