Valentine Holmes has scored a record five tries for the Kangaroos who have sounded an ominous warning to rival nations with a 46-0 trouncing of Samoa in their Rugby League World Cup quarter-final.
Coach Mal Meninga wanted his team to entertain on Friday night, and Australia treated the sellout 13,473 crowd in Darwin with an impressive eight-try rout to move into the final four.
The Kangaroos will move to Brisbane to face New Zealand or Fiji.
Holmes broke the Australian record for most tries in a Test, surpassing eight players on four, including teammate Wade Graham who achieved the feat two weeks ago.
Michael Morgan scored a first-half double, while Billy Slater also went on the scoresheet in what was easily Australia’s best attacking display of the tournament.
Samoa bow out after a disastrous campaign, having failed to win any of their pool games and showing little resistance to Australia’s full force at a humid TIO Stadium.
The Kangaroos’ highlights reel will be led by Holmes’ 90-metre effort for his first try, as well as him finishing a team 60-metre movement for his fourth.
The right winger etched his name in the record books with a dazzling run on the opposite side of the field in the 76th minute.
The avalanche began in the ninth minute, when Holmes was the beneficiary of a dubious Josh Dugan tapback from a Cooper Cronk kick.
Holmes’ second was far more impressive, breaking out of a tackle on his 10-metre line and offloading for Cronk before getting the ball back and racing away for a long-range try.
Slater rejoined Jarryd Hayne as leading tryscorer in World Cup history off a set play. Morgan clinched his two tries in the space of five minutes.
First, the Kangaroos’ five-eighth sliced through some soft defence in the 31st minute, before he won the race to a Cameron Smith grubber with no Samoan defender in sight.
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