Wales with eyes on Rotorua in Samoan scouting mission
Published:Samoa return to rugby action for the first time since beating Australia in July and their opening appearance of the World Cup is good news for Wales.
Following a narrow defeat to South Africa at the weekend, the Welsh focus has to turn to Saturday’s huge game with Samoa and a big performance from the Samoans on Wednesday morning will help the Welsh focus.
Samoa are 1/80 to beat Namibia in Rotorua and are expected to post a big score against the alleged whipping boys of Pool D, and you can guarantee the Wales management team will be scrutinising the fixture.
However Samoa haven’t played a minute of competitive rugby since beating a weakened Australia team in Sydney, and the Namibian’s will be hoping to catch the Samoans cold.
The 2003 World Cup played host to the only meeting between Samoa and Namibia and the Samoans ran out the comfortable 40-13 winners.
However Samoa have failed to score more than 34 points in their last 14 matches and Namibia, having put two tries past Fiji in their opening game, the Namibians will be confident of an upset.
Samoa’s game with Fiji back in July offers a little form guide to this game and Samoa lost 36-18 on that occasion, suggesting Wednesday morning’s tie will be a lot closer than expected.
Namibia are 18/1 to register what would be a shock upset but while we expect it to be tight, we can’t imagine a Namibian win.
Namibia have managed to reach double figures in all of their last 16 games and also managed to do so against South Africa, Ireland and France in the last World Cup.
Samoa are struggling to put points on the board and so the 1/1 for Namibia to win with a +31 start looks like the bet of the day.
Punters should also be tempted by the 13/8 for Namibia to win with a +25 point start as Samoa’s lack of game time should see them struggle in the second half.
