Samoa

[Irish-bulldog]

are they the biggest disappointment in this World Cup ? I think so, stacked full of nrl stars, but they look poorly coached, they look overweight, lazy and directionless. I expected much more from this team. I think the best half in the whole tournament from Samoa was the first half against Nz , they seem to be getting worse as this comp goes on.

 

[Rory]

I thought you thought scotland, wales and france were the most disappointing? Look who cares injuries happens to teams. They've got plenty of world cups ahead to do well. They shouldn't even fkn be there anyway, Ireland should be!

 

[Irish-bulldog]

I thought you thought scotland, wales and france were the most disappointing? Look who cares injuries happens to teams. They've got plenty of world cups ahead to do well. They shouldn't even fkn be there anyway, Ireland should be!

Actually I never stated wales Scotland and France were disappointing , I said wales and Scotland were real bad and that France wouldn’t win a game, which I was right about. Samoa should be doing much better even with this team. Injuries pfff they have a full team of nrl stars.

 

[Jim from Oz]

Many of them certainly look overweight and a fair few appear disinterested

 

[Irish-bulldog]

Many of them certainly look overweight and a fair few appear disinterested

More my point yes. Too busy complaining they aren’t getting paid enough.

 

[Springs09]

The island teams always play like this when without halves or a good coach. Tonga did the same in the last World Cup. They have no direction or motivation. Without good spine players yelling at them all game they fall to bits. It's the same in the NRL.

As I've said, Samoa had 10+ players out. If that's the excuse for France, Wales and Scotland then Samoa can use it too. They have a rubbish coach and first grade spine players such as Milford and Pritchard out.

 

[morningstar]

Matt Parish is a shit coach. Hopefully he can't get away with it this time by deflecting and whingeing about eligibility and player payments in the media.

 

[latingringo101]

Bit of a disappointment Samoa this tournament. Thought they would have put in a better performance against teams like Scotland and give kiwis a run for their money, but no luck this tournament

 

[Force]

Sad to say, Samoa have been poor. With a full strength team like that of Tonga they would've done a lot better. Probably the only positive notes are Samoa made the quarters and they didnt suck as bad as Wales or Scotland.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Samoa this year is a warning about investing in hyperbole over fleeting success by heritage teams. And Scotland too. The 4N in which Samoa performed quite well and last year's when Scotland were competitive raised expectations and misleadingly suggested these tier two teams were ready to be competitive regularly.

This year Tonga is the team everyone is getting carried away with. But if they don't keep all their heritage players they are just as capable of dropping back to being only modestly competitive.

The only sustainable means of making second tier nations competitive with the big three on a regular basis is to help them keep their best players long term or, better still, develop home grown players of increasing quality. That's why PNG, France and Fiji are still the best prospects of joining the big three in the future.

 

[Burns]

ECT is spot on. Samoa were on the cusp of beating NZ in 2014, pushed England and were decent against Australia. They had a raft of players available then who were absent by injury or other country this year.

If JT and Fifita etc don’t back up for Tonga next year, they are a very B Tier team.

 

[Irish-bulldog]

ECT is spot on. Samoa were on the cusp of beating NZ in 2014, pushed England and were decent against Australia. They had a raft of players available then who were absent by injury or other country this year.

If JT and Fifita etc don’t back up for Tonga next year, they are a very B Tier team.

Agreed so the likes of France, and Fiji are still the best option moving forward

 

[hutch]

Agreed. Tonga were ranked 11th in the world before this tournament based on all their previous poor results. The key is continuing on and building from this World Cup for all nations. This rarely happens in rugby league.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

ECT is spot on.

Electroconvulsive therapy is not nice.

My girl is going through a 12 session course right now.

 

[Pig Champion]

Electroconvulsive therapy is not nice.

My girl is going through a 12 session course right now.

Wow, is it still used? Hopefully it's done a bit better than back in the 80s and 90s when I was nursing.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

Wow, is it still used? Hopefully it's done a bit better than back in the 80s and 90s when I was nursing.

Still is mate. The medical profession has toned it down a bit with the intensity of the electric current.

But it's still used when medication isn't effective as in my girl's case with severe psychosis and schizophrenia as you would know.

She's had over 60 treatments now since May last year but this has f**k all to do with Samoa.

Cheers buddy!

 

[Rory]

NZ are the most disappointing surely. A team apart of the big 3 loses to 2, tier 2 nations.

 

[Irish-bulldog]

NZ are the most disappointing surely. A team apart of the big 3 loses to 2, tier 2 nations.

Well I started this post before today’s games

 

[Force]

Samoa this year is a warning about investing in hyperbole over fleeting success by heritage teams. And Scotland too. The 4N in which Samoa performed quite well and last year's when Scotland were competitive raised expectations and misleadingly suggested these tier two teams were ready to be competitive regularly.

This year Tonga is the team everyone is getting carried away with. But if they don't keep all their heritage players they are just as capable of dropping back to being only modestly competitive.

The only sustainable means of making second tier nations competitive with the big three on a regular basis is to help them keep their best players long term or, better still, develop home grown players of increasing quality. That's why PNG, France and Fiji are still the best prospects of joining the big three in the future.

You can pretty much say the same thing for all teams bar Australia. If they are missing their top players, then they wont perform as well. Australia is the only team who could handle injuries or defections to key players and still come out on top given the depth they have, every other team would look ordinary.

Im not sold on France, for some reason they always seem to disappoint. You would think they would be up there by now but they always find a way to fail. PNG can replace like-with-like (without sounding too condescending) they dont have many top players so they wouldn't miss much if they were unavailable.

 

[Stallion]

You can pretty much say the same thing for all teams bar Australia. If they are missing their top players, then they wont perform as well. Australia is the only team who could handle injuries or defections to key players and still come out on top given the depth they have, every other team would look ordinary.

Im not sold on France, for some reason they always seem to disappoint. You would think they would be up there by now but they always find a way to fail. PNG can replace like-with-like (without sounding too condescending) they dont have many top players so they wouldn't miss much if they were unavailable.

French rugby league need a fair go in France itself. Its been doing it tough in various aspects for decades. The code has not got 'friends in high places ' like other rival codes. Hope things come good for a more than deserving football code in rugby-league sometime soon.