Wednesday 14 November 2001

Samoa 17 Italy 9

The touring team of Samoa recorded their third consecutive win over Italy on Saturday by beating the home team 17-9 at the Fattori Stadium in Alghero.

The Azzurri, coming from a 66-10 crushing of Fiji and a 54-26 loss against South Africa, were outplayed by the visiting team, which fielded several young and inexperienced players.

Lome Fa'atau scored Samoa's first and only try after just four minutes, while Italy got its only points from the boot of flyhalf Diego Dominguez, who improved his total number of Test points to 949.

Thanks to Dominguez's boot Italy were ahead 9-8 shortly before the break, but a penalty goal by Tanner Vili gave Samoa an 11-9 first-half edge.

The margin of victory for Samoa could have been bigger had their kickers not missed nine out of 13 kicks at goal.  Vili missed a conversion and four penalties while Leaega also missed four three-pointers.

It was a very physical encounter with Samoan centre Fara'aoni Lalomilo getting red carded for a dangerous high tackle on Samuele Pace in the 35th minute.

The Teams:

Samoa:  1 Jeremy Tomuli, 2 Jonathan Meredith, 3 Tamato Leupolu, 4 Opeta Palepoi, 5 Kitiona Viliamu, 6 Patrick Segi, 7 Siaosi Vaili, 8 Semo Sititi, 9 Denning Tyrell, 10 Tanner Vili, 11 Lome Fa'atau, 12 Elvis Seveali'i, 13 Inga Tuigamala, 14 Brian Lima, 15 Silao Leaega

Italy:  1 Andrea Muraro, 2 Alessandro Moscardi, 3 Giampiero De Carli, 4 Wim Visser, 5 Marco Bortolami, 6 Andrea Benatti, 7 Mauro Bergamasco, 8 Carlo Checchinato, 9 Alessandro Troncon, 10 Diego Dominguez, 11 Denis Dallan, 12 Walter Pozzebon, 13 Cristian Stoica, 14 Samuele Pace, 15 Luca Martin

Points Scorers:

Samoa
Tries:  Faatau L. 1
Pen K.:  Leaega S. 2, Vili T.A. 2

Italy
Pen K.:  Dominguez D. 3

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