Samoa defeated Kazakhstan at Ellerslie Park Rugby ground to open their IRB Women’s Rugby World Cup account, but they were given a fright by a Kazakhstan team that threatened to turn the match around in the second half.
A vociferous crowd enjoyed what resulted in being a closely fought physically battle between two very passionate sides.
Samoa arguably had the advantage in the early encounters with their inside centre Anita Kerrigan taking the game to the Kazakhstan team, but the Asian side displayed an aggressive defence to keep their opponents in their own half. The Samoans did earn an early penalty, which the fly half Bella Milo slotted over with ease.
Midway through the first half, Samoa were finally able to break the defence of Kazakhstan with some incisive runningfrom their backline including some great footwork from winger Sosefina Petelo, with the pressure finally telling the line was broken by flanker Elina Beets.
Samoa went into half time 8-0 ahead. The score could have been higher if it wasn’t for the exemplary tackling of the Kazakhstan captain and full back Svetlana Klyuchnikova, who, on a number of occasions, made a number of one-on-one tackles preventing the Samoan team from extending their lead.
Samoa looked to have made the game safe moments after the break as full back Valuese Sao Taliu was able to score her first try of the match.
However, it was Kazakhstan who took control of the game with a concerted amount of pressure on the Samoan defence for the next 20 minutes, culminating in a fantastic swerving run by winger Irina Amossova, which ended in a memorable try.
The score by Kazakhstan appeared to shock the Samoan team back into action and they began to play with the skill that saw them move into the lead in the first half, with second row and Captain Ainslie Sauvao leading from the front in a show of controlled aggression from the Samoan forwards.
The Samoan side was able to turn on the style for the final quarter of the match, attacking from all areas of the pitch, capping off the impressive patch of form with a well worked try for Valuese Saotaliu.
This placed the Samoan team in an unassailable 20 – 5 lead that would end up being the final score of a game that certainly could have gone either way.