Photo: A Fiji player finds his legs tied up by a Samoan defender with another coming in to make sure he doesn’t get any more yards. 3 91002103
The Toa Samoa rugby sevens team proved that passion can beat skill and class when they stormed the classy Fijian outfit to win the gold medal in their finals match yesterday.
Fuelled by the emotion of the tsunami tragedy, Samoa played like possessed men, leaving the Fijians stumped.
Samoa came out firing to keep Fiji scoreless until the last five minutes of the game when Fiji scored two tries in quick succession, but it wasn’t enough to pull back Samoa’s 38 point lead with the game ending 38-12.
In the stands of the BCI stadium, Team Samoa sang with joy as the team’s medal brought some light in what have been a dark few days for the nation.
Tonga was another surprise package yesterday when they overthrew Niue in the bronze medal match to win 38-12.
The Cook Islands had a winning day yesterday but it was just too little too late after bowing out of any medal contention on the first day of competition.
Nevertheless they trucked on to beat the Solomon Islands 32-5 in the plate semi finals to meet and beat Papua New Guinea in the 5th and 6th place playoff 17-12. - Cook Islands News
Last Modified on 10/10/2009 15:23