USA held up their end of the bargain in their quest to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup, but they face a nervous wait to see if their commanding victory over Samoa is enough.<\/p>\n
The Eagles knew they had to win in York and hope Australia were beaten by England without securing a bonus point to reach the last eight \u2013 with a 135-point swing also needed across the two games to ensure USA overhauled the Wallaroos.<\/p>\n
They did their job, racking up their biggest scoreline for more than a decade, but need England to win by 75 points and prevent Australia from gaining a bonus point for scoring four tries or more to confirm they qualify alongside the hosts.<\/p>\n
Ten tries \u2013 four of them to forward Freda Tafuna \u2013 and five conversions from Gabby Cantorna meant all eyes now turn to Brighton. There was never really any danger of the Eagles failing to pick up a victory here against a Samoan side that had failed to score a try in their opening two games.<\/p>\n
Quick GuideUSA 60-0 Samoa: teams and scorersShow<\/p>\n
USA<\/b> Ibarra; Henrich (Kelter 48), Maher, Cantorna, Coulibaly; Hawkins (Bitter 48), Bargell (Ortiz 61); Rogers (Learned 61), Treder (Stathopoulos 54), Sagapolu (Leatherman 61), Taufoou (Brody 67), Jarrell, Tafuna, Zackary, Johnson (Perris-Redding 54).\u00a0
Tries<\/b> Tafuna 4, Rogers 2, Bargell, Coulibaly, Jarrell, Ortiz. Conversions<\/b> Cantorna 5.<\/p>\n
Samoa<\/b> Ah-Cheung; Aumua (Makisi 53), Pouri-Lane, Vatau, Falaniko; Wright-Akeli, Afuie (Tugaga 61); Aiolupotea (Mamea 41), Filimaua (Nonutunu 41), Iosefo (Samuelu 41), Sio (Taylor 41), Madisen-Jade, Atonio (Foaese 49), Pauaraisa, Fanen-Lolo (48).<\/p>\n
Referee<\/b> N Ganley (New Zealand).<\/p>\n
Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n
This was instead more about accumulating as many points as possible to pile the pressure on the Wallaroos. The first priority in York was to secure the bonus point courtesy of four tries; that was achieved inside the opening 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
Tafuna\u2019s wonderful solo effort broke the deadlock after six minutes before two tries in 12 minutes from Hope Rogers underlined USA\u2019s early dominance. By half-time, they had two more tries from Cassidy Bargell and Erica Coulibaly to make it 27-0 at the interval. But the urgency in the USA\u2019s play after the break underlined they needed much more.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Fly-half Kristin Bitter attacks the Samoan defensive line during the second half. Photograph: Molly Darlington\/World Rugby\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Erica Jarrell resumed the scoring within seconds of the restart before Tafuna picked up her second three minutes later with a rampaging run through the Samoan midfield. Two more tries for Tafuna either side of the hour mark hinted that the Eagles were set to run up a huge scoreline, though their cause was not helped when Kristin Bitter was sent to the sin-bin with 20 minutes left.<\/p>\n That stunted their flow and it looked like Samoa, roared on by a boisterous crowd, might even score a try of their own. However, USA finished with a flourish as Olivia Ortiz\u2019s try and a fifth conversion from Cantorna brought up the 60-point mark in the closing moments. Time will tell if it is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USA held up their end of the bargain in their quest to qualify for the quarter-finals of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-403226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115158626801229701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}