Samoa - Manu Samoa
Team Preview
Coach:
Michael Jones
Previous World Cups:
1991, 1995, 1999, 2003
Best Performance:
Quarter-finals 1991, 1995
Played:
16 - 8 wins, 8 losses
World Ranking:
No.10
Fixtures:
v South Africa, Paris, September 9
v Tonga, Montpellier, September 16
v England, Nantes, September 22
v USA, St-Etienne, September 26
Facts:
1. The Samoans have appeared in all four tournaments that included qualifying but failed to earn an invite to the 1987 edition of the competition.
2. Like New Zealand they start each match with a traditional dance. Theirs is called the 'Siva Tau'.
3. Samoa's coach is All Blacks legend Michael Niko Jones.
4. Current captain Semo Sititi was the only Samoan-based player in the 1999 World Cup squad.
5. Samoa has beaten Wales twice in World Cup rugby, in 1991 and 1999.
Key Players:
Samoa skipper Semo Sititi is hoping it is third-time lucky in France as he attempts to lead his country to the quarter-finals of the World Cup for the first time since 1995.
And if that was not incentive enough, the 33-year-old will be up against the two sides who eliminated his from the competition last time around.
Samoa has been drawn alongside its 2003 conquerors England and South Africa in Pool A, as well as fellow Pacific Islanders Tonga and the United States, and the holders in particular will be aware of the danger the No.8 can pose.
Despite the disappointment of falling at the first hurdle in Australia four years ago, that tournament, and more specifically the narrow defeat to England, was a personal triumph for Sititi.
He went over for a try in a 35-22 loss as Samoa gave the eventual winners a major scare, probably they biggest the received en route to the final, leading for much of the game before England pulled away at the death to add an undeserved gloss to the final score.
Sititi and his side had started the 2003 World Cup in style, with emphatic wins over Uruguay and Georgia, in which he also scored, but it ended in an anti-climax as his side was hammered 60-10 by the Springboks in its decisive final game.
Sititi though is familiar to English supporters, not just for being a thorn in the team's side in Australia, but for the time he spent at Newcastle as well as Celtic League sides Cardiff Blues and Border Reivers.
After a short spell with Cardiff in 2002, he played for Borders for two years before trying his luck in the English Premiership with the Falcons.
He helped Rob Andrew's side to the 2004-05 Heineken Cup quarter-final, where it lost to Stade Francais, after finishing top of a group containing Perpignan, Newport Gwent Dragons and Edinburgh.
A year later he returned to Borders as the now-defunct club finished third-from-bottom of the Celtic League.
He now though plies his trade on the other side of the world with NTT Docomo Kansai in Japan's Top West League, which must raise doubts over his ability to still perform at the highest level.
The regional Top West League is only the second tier of rugby in the country, and Docomo only finished fourth in the nine-team league last season after winning five of its eight games, so the competition Sititi faces at club level is clearly light years away from what he can expect in France.
Samoa has been warming up for the World Cup by competing in the Pacific Nations Cup in May and June, but Sititi started only three of the five games.
Samoa looked distinctly unimpressive in the games he missed though, despite winning them both, suggesting it can ill afford to do without the experience and leadership qualities of its captain.
Sititi played in the opening match, a far from convincing 8-3 win over Fiji, before being left out of the starting line-up for the 31-10 defeat to the Junior All Blacks.
He came on for the second half though and helped bolster a struggling Samoa side and keep the young Kiwis from running riot, the second period ending in a 7-7 draw.
He played in the 27-15 defeat to Australia A, a match in which Samoa was within striking distance of the Wallabies until the final minute, but was omitted for the thoroughly undeserved 13-3 win over Japan.
He returned for the final game, a thumping 50-3 win over World Cup opponents Tonga, but it remains to be seen whether he can make the step up from facing the lesser sides and recreate the performances which brought him so many plaudits four years ago.
Having made his Test debut against Japan in 1999, Sititi took over the captaincy of Samoa after it was knocked out of the 1999 World Cup at the second-round playoff stage.
That was the tournament at which Sititi announced his arrival to a British audience, helping Samoa to a shock 38-31 win over host nation Wales and then scoring in the 35-20 defeat to Scotland.
The Samoa captain has played the heroic loser role in both of the past two World Cups.
With September's tournament almost certainly his last hurrah on the big stage, he would love to grab a first taste of last-eight action and gain revenge on England or South Africa - or both - in the process.