18 Mar 2016

Sport: Fiji Warriors and Samoa A to meet in final

12:19 pm on 18 March 2016

Fiji Warriors will meet Samoa A in the final of the World Rugby Pacific Challenge after both recorded convincing victories in the final round robin matches in Suva.

The five time champions Fiji thrashed Tonga A 56-18 to make it 134 points and 17 tries across their three matches to date.

But for the second match running Fiji had a man sent off and they had another man sent to the sin-bin, their fourth in three games, while Tonga A also had a player dismissed and two yellow-carded.

Meanwhile Samoa A raced into a 22-0 half-time lead against Junior Japan before running out 42-22 winners.

Alama Ieremia has been appointed Manu Samoa head coach.

Alama Ieremia has been appointed Manu Samoa head coach. Photo: PHOTOSPORT

Team manager and Samoa Rugby's Director of Coaching Alama Ieremia said it was an important tournament for them.

"The talent has always been there and it's a matter of nurturing that and developing it throughout this campaign. We've had a couple of games obviously building into this tournament and it's taught us a lot of lessons around certain players. This is a very important development team for Samoa moving forward - especially the local talent - and then obviously just bringing in overseas [based] players in key positions to help mould this programme together. It's very important that some of these players actually kick on and come through to the Manu Samoa and I've been pretty happy with the form of the individuals that I believe are certainly putting their hands up for (the Pacific Tri Series in) June."

The Pacific Challenge final and third place playoff will take place on Monday.

2016 Pacific Challenge Table after Round Robin:

Fiji Warriors 15 points

Samoa A 10 points

Junior Japan 4 points

Tonga A 0 points