CRICHTON: MY CLUB BANNED ME FROM KICKING... I KEPT MISSING

SAMOA hero Stephen Crichton’s match-winning drop-goal was a career first – as he is banned from even trying them at club level.

The centre, who plays for Penrith in Sydney, iced a pressure 84th-minute kick in golden point extra-time to shatter England (right).

It put tier-two Samoa – a nation of just 200,000 people – into a first World Cup final. But Crichton, 22, admitted: “I’ve never hit a drop-goal before.

“I was zero from four (in the NRL). The Penrith boys never let me do it again. But hopefully they are watching and I get my licence back!

“I thought I hit it short. But then the emotion hit me.

“It takes a lot to put our little country on the map. I’m really proud of the boys.” Crichton had already scored two tries and kicked three goals in a brilliant display.

He last toured the UK in 2018 with the Australian Schoolboys side that suffered a 2-0 series defeat to a Jack Welsby-inspired England Academy.

But Welsby endured a torrid time on Saturday.

Crichton, who turned down the Kangaroos to represent the country of his birth, had ‘for my people’ written on his strapping tape. “There are fans around the globe backing us,” he said.