England conclude their year in terms of rugby league international action on Saturday afternoon when they host Samoa in the second game of what is a criminally short series with this encounter coming from Leeds.
England were comfortable winners of the opening match last week but Samoa are a proud bunch who won’t want to leave the series without making a significant impression on it so we should be in for a cracking contest here.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the BBC1 channel in the UK with the build-up to the game beginning at 2pm ahead of the kick off at 2.30pm.
England
England don’t get the chance to take on top level opposition very often so when they do they need to make the most of it. With that in mind, they will be delighted to have beaten the World Cup finalists last week while at the same time appreciating that there is more to come from them and they will need to find that over the next couple of years if they intend on going to Australia as genuine challengers for the World Cup.
The good thing for England in the first game is that they were pretty ruthless when their chances came along. That is big because sometimes England have run out of attacking ideas in the big matches but having a couple of reliable kickers in open play certainly helps matters and they have forwards who can get them going forward. Shaun Wane prides himself on his defence as a coach so he certainly won’t have been happy with England and their defending in the first game and an improvement could happen there.
Samoa
Samoa were never going to be the same side which came to England and made the World Cup final a couple of years ago when you consider the level of talent that they haven’t got at their disposal for this series but at the same time they would have been disappointed with their start in Wigan last week. They found themselves 16-0 down inside 20 minutes of that match and it was a long way back from there so they will be looking to get off to a much better start here.
To their credit, Samoa drew the remaining hour of the first game in Wigan so if they come on for the run, and it would be a massive surprise were they not to do that, then they will feel that they are in with every chance of levelling the series over the course of this match. We know that any Samoan side has the skills to unlock a defence but their own defence wasn’t up to much in the opener and Ben Gardiner will have been working hard to sort that out over the course of the last week.
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Team News
England are going to be forced into at least one change to their starting 13 for this match because Dom Young will miss out through injury. Wigan winger Liam Marshall has been called up and is expected to replace him. Luke Thompson returns from suspension too.
Ricky Leutele and Simi Sasagi were a couple of surprise absentees from the squad for the opening match for Samoa and it will be interesting to see if they come in here. Leutele might be most likely to come in given that a winger was in the centres last time out.
Betting
If you take the opening 20 minutes of the match last week out of the equation then Samoa were more than competitive in that first game and when you consider that they should naturally come on for the run I think the 14 points they are getting to start the game with looks a little on the high side to me. The match actually finished level from the 20 minute point so with a better start Samoa are entitled to be well within this match with a chance of winning it let alone staying within three scores of England.
I’m not sure England have much natural improvement in them. Samoa might not have got the very best of them in the opening game but there isn’t a whole lot more to come whereas now Samoa know what they are getting they should be able to start stronger and get a much stronger foothold into the game. I expect this to turn into a real arm wrestle of a Test match the longer it goes on and while I fancy England might still edge this one, I don’t see them covering a 14 point start.
Tips
Back Samoa (+14) to beat England for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Sky Bet
