Samoa registered a bonus point victory beating Chile 43-10 in their opening match of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France today.
Former Australia fly-half Christian Leali’ifano opened the scoring with an early penalty before Chile responded as prop Matias Dittus found a way over from the bottom of a ruck on their first visit to Samoa’s half before Santiago Videla converted to make it 7-3 after just seven minutes.
Samoa was reduced to 14 players when centre UJ Seuteni was adjudged to have made a high tackle on Videla, and the midfielder was shown a yellow card.
Despite being down a man, Leali’ifano added two penalties for Samoa before Matias Garafulic booted a penalty for Chile.
At half-time, Samoa led 19-10 as Leali’ifano kicked a penalty and Seuteni made up for his earlier misdemeanour by assisting full-back Duncan Paia’aua, an uncapped former Australia squad member, for a try.
Samoa asserted their dominance after the interval, snapping three back-to-back tries from scrum-half Taumateine, flanker Lee and hooker Malolo while Leali’ifano converted twice.
Soon after, Chile was reduced to 13 men when flanker Alfonso Escobar and prop Esteban Inostroza were shown yellow cards while Samoa went down to 14 men again with Ereatara Enari in the bin.
Malolo had the final say in sealing off the win with an 80th minute try and Sopoaga converted.
Samoa will face Argentina at 3.45am next Saturday.
