Samoa savaged in 'awful' Rugby League World Cup scenes: 'Dismal'
Samoa's World Cup side was accused of treating the rugby league World Cup as a holiday after being thrashed by England in a horror start to their campaign.
Samoa, one of the pre-tournament favourites, was thumped 60-6 by a rampant England at St James Park, immediately heaping extra pressure on coach Matt Parish and the team's galaxy of NRL stars.
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The Poms scored 10 tries to one, with the Roosters' Victor Radley earning man-of-the-match honours in his first game for his adopted country.
With several high-profile players pledging their allegiance to the Samoan cause over tier one countries, the Pacific Island nation was expected to threaten for the title.
They may still recover from this shellacking to mount a challenge, but the early signs don't look great.
Veteran commentator Phil Gould led the condemnation, tweeting: "England too good. Fast, skilful, committed. It obviously meant so much more to them.
"England dominating the advantage line in both attack and defence. Beating Samoa to the punch on every play.
"Look slick. Hooker and halves terrific. Samoa look like they are on holidays and haven’t trained together. Very disjointed. Defence awful. Very disappointing so far.
"Taking nothing away from England, but Samoa were a rabble. Never in the contest. Dismal display."
England piles on points against sorry Samoa
The visitors conceded six tries in the final 16 minutes, leading to accusations they gave up when the going got too tough.
Coach Matt Parish, who survived a player-led revolt to unseat him from the job last year, was defiantly optimistically Samoa's campaign still has life in it.
"We could play that game again tomorrow and it would be an entirely different result," he said.
“As we have always said, we will build from this performance. It wasn’t a performance we wanted today but we still have a group of guys in there who are determined to do something this World Cup.
"Nothing has changed from that."
Samoa can still reach the quarter-finals where they would likely line-up against fierce rivals Tonga.
But they will have to do so without Tyrone May, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Braden Hamlin-Uele, who were all injured in the loss to England.
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