Samoa ready for angry Boks

Editor

Samoa head coach Stephen Betham is ready for a South African backlash after the Springboks' surprise loss to Japan on Saturday.

A 25-16 win got Samoa's campaign off to a good start on Sunday and asked about what the Japan result has done to Pool B, Betham was honest in his assessment.

"We'll give it everything against South Africa. There will probably be a backlash, but we'll be ready for it," said Betham.

"I don't think [the Japan win] changes our thinking. If anything, it has woken everybody up.

"We all start off on a level field in the World Cup and if you take your chances on the day you will be very hard to beat."

Full-back Tim Nanai-Williams was the star of the show after he scored in the first-half was named Man of the Match.

"Tim adds great unpredictability to our side," Betham said.

"It's something we've seen from him in Super Rugby and he's brought that in today."

Assessing the areas Samoa need to work on, Betham singled out a number of issues including not forcing key passes.

"We hoped for something more convincing. It was scrappy and we forced a few too many 50-50 passes, but we'll take the win," he said.

"We made a lot of breaks and didn't finish them off which made the game hard for us, so there's a lot to tidy up.

"I'm happy with the discipline – it's one of the first games we've gone through without having someone in the bin.

"We look for consistency and we haven't struck that yet. It's still something that we're fishing for."

The Brighton crowd once again created an excellent atmosphere on Sunday, with Betham on behalf of the Samoa camp thanking the public for making his side welcome.

"The reception has been magnificent. The boys felt at home with the public from Brighton showing up and they would like to say thank you for making us feel at home."