Impressive Italy Too Good For Manu Samoa
Autumn Nations Italy 49 Samoa 17.
Photo: Supplied
Samoa started off strong in the opening minutes of the first half but were unable to score any points, however, Italy drew first blood in the 11th minute through a penalty goal from Tommaso Allan to put the scoreboard at 3-0. Italy was unstoppable from thereon as they scored two consecutive tries from Ignacio Brex Juan and Pierre Bruno with Allan successfully adding the conversion.
Monty Ioane gave Italy a 28-0 lead going into the break when he scored a wonderful try, with full back Tommaso Allan also on target with the extra 2 points. Samoa began clawing back despite the score-line and were able to score their first try through Ulupano Seuteni at the 52nd minute, with D’Angelo Leuila able to nail the conversion.
The hosts nevertheless responded only three minutes later through debutant Lorenzo Cannone, whilst Garbisi kicked the conversion on this occasion. Garbisi then crossed the try-line for a try of his own in the 63rd minute, which Pierre Bruno converted.
From then on, the game opened up, suiting Samoa, who scored two unconverted tries in the last 10 minutes through Duncan Paia’aua and Theo McFarland, when the full-time siren sounded, the final score was 49-17. A disappointed Michael Alaalatoa during an interview after the match stated that he's not proud of how they performed against Italy saying, "That's not good enough, we need an 80-minute performance."