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Samoa rock Japan as captain Leitch red carded
By Ian Cameron
In a gripping Pacific Nations Cup encounter at the Sapporo Dome, Samoa claimed a narrow 24-22 victory over hosts Japan.
Japan scored first through Amato Fakatava, who powered through the defensive line to score a try. Seungsin Lee added the extra points with a successful conversion, giving Japan an early 7-0 advantage. A further penalty for Lee stretched the lead to 10-0.
Samoa, however, quickly regrouped and their efforts soon paid off when Alamanda Motuga breached Japan's defense and crossed the try line for a 5-pointer.
Former Wallaby standoff Christian Leali'ifano added the conversion.
The match took a dramatic turn when Japan's Michael Leitch was shown a red card, leaving Japan with a numerical disadvantage.
The game continued to be a tightly contested battle however, with Lee's boot keeping Japan in front.
The momentum swung towards Samoa's favour when Jonathan Taumateine bulldozed his way through Japan's defense to score another try just after halftime, once again aided by Leali'ifano's successful conversion which put Samoa into the lead for the first time.
Despite being a man down, Japan fought valiantly, adding more pressure on Samoa.
Seungsin Lee's successful penalty goals kept Japan in contention, but Samoa managed to hold their ground, with Tumua Manu eventually scoring for the visiting side in the 61st minute.
The resulting conversion was the last score of the game.
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Latest Comments
Perenara is super woke, the treaty of long ago is irrelevant to a game of rugby in Italy. By referencing it and claiming the countries going through tough times is clearly because Perenara doesn't agree with the democratically elected government of New Zealand that people from all ethnicities voted for. Perenara is making it divisive and political despite many of his team mates that wouldn't agree with his decision. The Allblacks saved this year's worst performance to combine it with the most divisive haka statement. Perhaps it's overdue now for NZ rugby to leave the haka for home games only, ensure that only the players that want to do it are included and never again have 'insertions' added by political activist players.
Go to commentsI expected a larger win than this and the ABs were off slightly whilst the rested Italians were well up for this and gave a real committed performance
Frustrating but a lot of those ABs forwards have done huge minutes this tour and Italy are not the side from the World Cup
Remember they beat wales and Scotland in the 6N
Drew with France and lost to England by 3
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