Fresh from the plaudits of the rugby world for their performance against England, Samoa assistant coach Michael Jones has said that the Pacific Islanders are now preparing for “the biggest game of our lives” against South Africa.
Both sides have won two and lost one of their three games to date – both losses coming against England – with South Africa occupying second spot by virtue of having a points difference four better than Samoa, both having 10 points.
Therefore whoever emerges victorious from Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday night will join England in the quarter finals, where a daunting clash with Tournament favourites New Zealand awaits them. For the loser, their Rugby World Cup dream will be over.
“That [England] was the biggest game of our lives up to now,” said Jones, a Rugby World Cup winner with New Zealand in 1987 and the first player to score a try in the inaugural Tournament.
“But in the scheme of things this [South Africa] is the biggest game of our lives now.
“We’ve just got to make sure we do everything we can to make sure our boys get right back up there because this is huge, it doesn’t come any bigger.
Bring on South Africa
“We’ve got a very mature group of boys, a lot of really top leaders and they’re already talking about it [facing South Africa].
“It’s was amazing how disappointed they were not to win [against England] – that was our dream and our goal. But straight afterwards…it was more about ‘let’s bring it on, let’s bring on South Africa.”
Samoa are no strangers to causing upsets at Rugby World Cups, the Pacific Islanders having recorded the first ever victory by a ‘minnow’ over the eight leading nations when, on their debut in October 1991, they beat Wales 16-13 at Cardiff Arms Park.
To prove this was no one off, Samoa narrowly lost 9-3 to Australia in their next match before beating Argentina 35-12 to qualify for the quarter finals, a feat they repeated in 1995 after victories over Italy and Argentina.
The Pacific Islanders maintained their record of never having failed to reach the knockout phases in 1999, upsetting Wales again en route to a quarter final playoff defeat by Scotland.