On an incredible night at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai, Samoa dug deep to tie 13-13 with Belgium and book their 10th straight Rugby World Cup appearance at Men's Rugby World Cup 2027.
It was a bitter disappointment for Belgium who miss out on a place in Australia 2027 on try bonus points after remaining undefeated in the tournament thanks to victories against Namibia and Brazil.
In the earlier match Namibia fought back from 17-0 down to defeat Brazil 40-31 in a high scoring and very entertaining affair to finish third overall.
SAMOA v BELGIUM
Samoa started well with great early ball movement seeing Jacob Umaga put Latrell Ah-Kiong away on a dangerous run down the right wing. Good defence from Belgium defused the danger but Samoa continued to attack and won a penalty soon after which Umaga landed to put Samoa up 3-0 after eight minutes.
Belgium were clearly missing their suspended loose-head prop Charles-Henri Berguet and were being given a torrid time at the scrum by the Samoan pack. But the Black Devils managed to capitalise on a Samoan error shortly afterwards and launch repeat attacks against the Pacific Islanders defensive line.
Samoa held firm but when flanker Niko Jones went high into a tackle on 12 minutes he received a yellow card, with Matias Remue landing the resulting penalty to make it 3-3. Samoa had a chance to re-take the lead soon after but the usually reliable Umaga missed the penalty attempt from a very kickable position.
On 23rd minutes a key moment in the game when Belgium right wing Isaac Montoisy was yellow carded for a no arms tackle. Belgium made a pre-arranged replacement shortly afterwards with prop Bruno Vliegen, brought in for the suspended Berguet, coming off for Basile van Parys.
Samoa looked certain to score minutes later and make their numerical advantage count but Umaga was dispossessed on the try line after desperate defence from Belgium wing Ervin Muric. Samoa continued to attack from the re-start but a breakdown penalty saw Belgium work their way downfield where another penalty gave fly-half Remue the chance to make it 6-3, which he duly accomplished.
Montoisy returned to the field minutes later with the period he was off the field and Belgium were reduced to 14 men – seeing the Black Devils not give up any points and actually take the lead. With five minutes to go in the half Samoa finally looked to turn their positional advantage into points but another superb turnover from veteran scrumhalf Julien Berger saw Samoa repelled again.
Belgium worked their way downfield and it was the Black Devils who finished the half on top with Remue having a chance to further increase his team’s lead, but the kick faded to the right to leave the half-time score Belgium 6 Samoa 3.
An outstanding feature of Belgium’s tactical defence during the match was their superb low tackles continually cutting the bigger Samoan attackers down. This was in evidence again early in the second half as Samoa were forced into more errors as the Belgium line held firm.
On 48 minutes the building frustration for Samoa saw Belgium awarded a penalty close to the Samoan line. The Black Devils threw everything into repeated phases but somehow Samoa held them out winning a crucial turnover when it seemed their line would definitely be breached.
Another Samoan mistake shortly afterwards gave Belgium more good field position but a powerful Samoan scrum saw them win the ball back. With the clock counting down to the final 20 minutes and the ball getting increasingly dewy in the cooling Dubai air, the pressure was starting to tell on both teams with repeated mistakes crueling any attacking efforts.
It was always going to be just one moment that would turn the game and it came for Samoa in the 63rd minute when after pounding away at the Belgium line for repeated phases, with Niko Jones prominent, Samoa finally worked their way over through replacement number eight Abraham Papali'i. The conversion from Umaga finally giving Samoa some breathing room at 10-6.
With the pressure lifted Samoa started to play a lot more freely allowing their physical strength to dominate. Umaga missed another long range penalty on 67 minutes but he made no mistake with a closer opportunity on 69 minutes to make it 13-6 with just over 10 minutes remaining.
Belgium somehow hit back with a superb run from Matias Remue that split the Samoan defence, beating multiple defenders, with captain Jean-Maurice Decubber picking up to drive over with just over five minutes remaining. With scores tied at 13-13 Belgium had to score again as a draw would be enough to send Samoa to Australia 2027.
The Black Devils had one final opportunity with a minute remaining to affect a turnover and give themselves a chance to claim a famous victory but the ball spilled forward and Samoa were able to close out the final lineout to claim the draw and the 24th and final place at Rugby World Cup 2027 in Australia.
Afterwards Belgium captain Jean-Maurice Decubber described the feeling as “half-half. There is one thing I am disappointed about not a defeat, but equal. I really think we can win this game. We must win this game, so really disappointed for all the players who finish his career. Julian Bérger, Maxime Jadot, lot of players. So disappointed for that, but the other half is, I am proud of this group. We have a lot of young player and really proud of them and we must use this results to work and to catapult into the next (Rugby World Cup) in 2031. So, yeah, that's really mixed.”
A relieved Samoan captain Theo McFarland said his team “were just grateful. It wasn’t at all pretty, but we got the job done, so we'll take it. I’m just proud of the boys, proud of the coaching staff. It's been a challenging year. It's been tough. The challenges that these boys face every year to get to this point, to get to wear this jersey, and it’s a small nation but we've got the ticket now (to RWC 2017), so I'm just proud, proud, of this team, this group, and it's only upward from here. We want to keep this momentum. We want to grow as a team. We will go forward and we want to play more games because honestly we don't want to just make up the numbers in the World Cup, we want to compete. So we're looking forward to the next step for our team and for this group."
NAMIBIA VS BRAZIL
In the early kick-off good pressure saw Brazil race out to a 17-0 lead thanks to tries to fullback Lucas Tranquez and hooker Leonel Moreno, with Tranquez converting both tries and landing a penalty. 21-year-old fly-half Joao Amaral also had the ball on an string, pinning Namibia back and after 16 minutes it was all Brazil.
Namibia needed to be the next to score and they were, using Brazil’s potent weapon of a rolling maul against them, driving the ball 20 metres down the field with prop Joshua Bester going over for the try after 21 minutes with the conversion making in 17-7.
But Brazil hit back almost straight away on 24 minutes with a powerful burst from inside centre Robert Tenorio, who usually plays on the wing, cutting straight through the Namibia defense, and then quick work from scrum half Lucas Spago, who fed the ball out to the wing, where captain Lorenzo Massari dived over to take Brazil out to 24-7, Tranquez landing the conversion from right on the touchline.
Namibia hit back just a minute later, with fullback Jay-Cee Nel, making a break down the left-hand side before feeding it to left wing Jurgen Meyer who finished superbly to bring Namibia back into the match 24-14 in what was shaping up as a very high scoring game with 36 points after just 28 minutes.
The Welwitschias continued putting pressure on the Brazil line. Os Tupis held firm but Namibia refused to give in and worked their way back into Brazil's 22 with a clever grubber kick. Then from the resulting scrum, big number four Adrian Ludick went over to bring the score back to 24-21 with just three minutes to go in what was an extremely entertaining first half.
Namibia started the second half as they had finished the first, putting tremendous pressure on the Os Tupis defensive line, before swinging it to the right where an excellent pick-up from right wing Danie van der Merwe saw him go over in the corner. Loubser keeping up the 100% perfect kicking record for both teams in the match.
Brazil’s job got even harder on 55 minutes with Tenorio shown a yellow card for obstruction that saw Brazil down to 13 men. Namibia took full advantage with the ball worked quickly upfield where Meyer sliced through to score his second try, again converted by Loubser.
Os Tupis legend Moisés Duque, who led the team out for his 67th and last cap for Brazil, then came on for the final 20 minutes but Namibia continued to forge ahead with Jay-Cee Nel capping off a superb all-round performance by charging over wide out to make it 40-24.
Namibia captain and hooker Louis van der Westhuizen received a late yellow card – which Brazil capitalised on with a well taken try from a lineout by Matheus De Souza Claudio, but the Welwitschias closed it out to complete a well deserved victory.
Afterwards Namibia head coach Pieter Rossouw said: “Another bad start for us again. But we got 40 points after that, and scored some really nice tries. We actually left a lot of points out there as well. We created a lot of tries which we didn't finish. But just happy that we finished on a high and the last three, four weeks were really nice working with the guys, and you could see how they improved every week. So yeah, it's very, very nice to finish that way.”
Brazil Director of Rugby Josh Reeves was disappointed to go home without a victory in Dubai but still excited about the potential he saw on the field: “I think we just got to make sure we go through a thorough review process in terms of how we were able to resource the program over the last four years and where that got us too. I think one thing's for sure, in Brazil we produce enough talent to be able to qualify for a Rugby World Cup. So it's how can we best put structures in place to support that talent so that we can perform more consistently, get wins and be in a better spot in four years’ time."
