June Internationals: Samoa VS Italy (15/06/2013)

[Big Ewis]

Samoa's scurm issues are all technical. This is essentially the same pack who scrummed against SAF in the World Cup and had parity with them.

well, for sure ! Samoa's pack is one of the heaviest out there. They had like 60kg + against Italy, that's huuuuuge and they still got destroyed, no two ways about it...it's obviously a technical issue.
Those Samoan forwards are huuu-uuuuu-uuuuuuge and heveh !!

 

[AfakasiAssasin]

Samoa's scurm issues are all technical. This is essentially the same pack who scrummed against SAF in the World Cup and had parity with them. The problem for the forwards is that we have lost the excellent forwards coach we had for the World Cup who is now ironically with the Blues (whose forwards are average to be honest). We also lost our defensive coach to the All Blacks. Against the Boks, the scrum is less of a worry in my view to the defensive line, especially the chase line on kicks which is quite ragged at the moment.

The vastly superior Bok backline will cause a lot of problems for the Manu if they make the easy yards the Italians and Scots did in the last 2 tests.

Bigger than all these problems though is the ref, lets hope that he doesn't give SAF the rub of the green at every opportunity and blows small infringements out of proportion due to stereotyping.

I always like the ref who reffed the game between Samoa/Italy as he strikes me as a guy who just tries to ref what's in front of him. Northern Hemisphere refs are the biggest ***** when it comes to pinging the **** out of island teams for stuff they let slide against the bigger nations. Fingers crossed we don't have one of these little pricks.

Actually it will be quite a different pack to the one that played the springboks. Potentially only 3 players (Leo, Thompson and Tuifua) will be in the run on team that played that RWC match. Our pack was getting pummeled in the scrum during the first half of that match (until Cencus Johnston was subbed on). Im hoping they can work hard during the week and get it together as best they can for the weekends clash as that and our lineout atm are probably the two biggest weaknesses atm and something I don't doubt South Africa will target.
Samoas scrum problems have always been on technicality as its not like we lack in size and strength. The best I've ever seen from the Samoan pack was our scrummaging vs Wales in last years EOYT match. Other than that game usually that's an aspect we struggle with when playing the big teams.

 

[Le_Manu]

Hey man. That was then this is now. If you watched the Italy game you wouldve seen our scrum was exposed quite abit in the first three quarters of the game. If the Italians could do what they did against our scrum, I see alot to be concerned with when we play South Africa. Our lineout has been shaky too the last two weeks.

Malo brother. Actually our lineout has been pretty good. I think we even stole some italian ball. But the SA lineout is world class and they will target us here. The scrum is a worry too but Italy postedquestions of the SA's scrum. I think our scrum is a lot more solid when Ti'i Paulo is in at hooker but Avei is the man at 2 especially around the paddock. Can't wait for this one though. Go The Manu