Samoa have rung the changes for today's Oceania Rugby Women's Championship clash against Australia A, as they keep an eye firmly on their World Cup qualification decider against Fiji at the weekend.
Just seven players have been retained in the starting 15 following Friday's 26-7 defeat by Fiji.
Fiji proved too strong for Samoa in their round robin clash at the Oceania Rugby Women's Championships. Photo: Oceania Rugby
Captain Nina Foaese is being rested after suffering an eye injury in while lock Jacinta Ausai has been ruled out of the remainder of the tournament with a knee injury.
Coach Ramsey Tomokino said the Manusina started strongly against Fiji but made too many errors in the second half and went away from their gameplan.
"We got 7-0 ahead - we started off very well - and when we did our review I said to the players if we could have taken that first 15 minutes and multiplied that by four we probably would have come out with the result," he said.Samoa
"We need to be a bit more physical. I questioned our players about being too nice - certainly Fiji weren't very nice with us and so I pointed it out to the girls. I just said to them: 'you've got to get the bit between your teeth' and when you clean someone [out from a ruck] you've got to clean someone rather than dance with them."
Who want's to start against Australia? Photo: Oceania Rugby
Samoa haven't played Australia for a long time and Tomokino said today's match is an opportunity for players to put their hands up for selection and get right what they didn't against Fiji.
"We're hoping to go out there and give Australia our best shot," he said.
"We're obviously going out there to win and obviously we're giving some players a run. It's easy to turn around and say we'll run all our next tier and save our players for Saturday but we've mixed it up and we want to go out there and give a really good account of ourselves."
Meanwhile, New Zealand are overwhelming favourites to seal their maiden Oceania Women's title in Lautoka.
The Black Ferns Development Team thumped Australia A 50-0. Photo: Oceania Rugby
The Black Ferns Development Team have yet to concede a point in big wins over Fiji and Australia A and only need a bonus point in today's final round clash against Papua New Guinea to secure top spot.
Fiji were originally scheduled to play Tonga in the final round, but the Kingdom were forced to withdraw from the competition at the weekend after being quarantined for measles.
