Team must get it right for ‘physical’ Samoa clash

Maitland continued: “That was a pretty special game for me because my mum’s half-samoan and my grandad’s full Samoan, born on the island, so I’ve got a bit of a connection.

“When I played against them in the World Cup four years ago that was a big game for me and a great game to play in, and I’m sure this one’s going to be another cracker.

“They’re always really physical and they’ll be licking their lips a little bit after watching our game against Ireland, no doubt, so we’ve got to front up, we’ve got to sort it out before Monday.

“And we’ll do that. You saw the reaction after the game against France in Nice the following week, and we can do the same again.”

What has to change is execution, continued Maitland.

“We know our kicking game has got to improve, we didn’t really utilise it, especially at a time when Ireland are suffocating you,” he said.

“Instead we tried to chuck the ball around and they got those turnovers and ended up in our fivemetre channel. We need to look to our kicking game a bit more.

“The first 30 minutes were pretty bad and you can’t start a test match like that.

“At 19-3 at half-time and the weather getting bad, the damage had been done.

“You’re chasing the game against a quality team like Ireland with a wet ball, that’s always going to be tough.

“I’m sure there are going to be some personnel changes, but the good thing about this competition is that you get another chance to get it right and we’ve got eight days to do it.”