Samoa rally to beat Tonga

Samoa have beaten Tonga 22-6 in the Pacific Island rugby league derby at Parramatta Stadium. The match was the curtain-raiser to Australia’s opening Four Nations clash with Papua New Guinea.

Samoa five-eighth Ben Roberts said he could feel his side getting on top and expressed a desire for the match to become a more regular fixture in the rugby league calendar.

“I’d love it, it’d be awesome. It’s not only good for the Samoan fans it’s also good for Tonga and both islands,” he said.

“Maybe the last 15 minutes of the first half was when we started to feel we were running over them so we thought we would keep it going in the second if we could stick to our game plan and pick the tempo up.”

Former Warriors star Ali Lauiti’iti said skipper Puletua led the way.

“It was good, it was good coming away with the win, the boys dug deep and played hard and passionate for the jersey,” he said.

Tongan forward Andrew Fifita declared the curtain-raiser might as well have been the main game, instead of the Australia and Papua New Guinea fixture.

“You saw the crowd today, most of the crowd was for our game and that was it. You go out and look at it now (post-match) and they’re all gone,” said Fifita.

“So you can pretty much say we were the main game and the Australian game is the second game.

“It was a good experience, it’s not about the loss here, it’s about the experience and about looking forward to the future for the World cup and the years ahead.”