Tonga Rolls as Eagles Stumble

After sticking with essentially the same lineup for their first two Pacific Nations Cup matches, Eagles’ Head Coach Mike Tolkin was looking to experiment as the USA took on Tonga. While the USA’s first XV is taking shape nicely, there are a lot of question marks in the reserves. Today’s match was an open test of the USA’s depth. Unfortunately for Tolkin, many of those questions still remain as the Eagles put in a sloppy performance in a 33-19 loss to Tonga. The score line was flattered by two late USA tries.

The USA struggled to build any sort of momentum as they dropped the ball, made poor passes, and fumbled most of their possession away to a Tongan side more than willing to punish the Eagles for their mistakes. Tonga got two tries from Fetu’u Vainikolo and 18 points off of the boot of Kurt Morath as they controlled the scoreboard from start to finish against the Eagles.

Vainikolo kicked off the scoring with a scintillating near-length of the field try on a counterattack, the defense contributing to his solo effort with three missed tackles. The Eagles bounced back shortly after with a penalty kick from Folau Niua to cut Tonga’s lead to 7-3. Morath added his first of four penalties a few minutes later as Tonga extended their lead to 10-3.

Morath added two more penalties to give Tonga a 16-3 lead going into the half. The game was far from decided, but Tonga looked the more polished of the two teams.

Niua gave the USA a bit of hope with a penalty goal just into the second half to cut the score to 16-6. This time around, Tonga answered with a converted try from Telusa Veainu to push their lead to 23-6. Morath added another penalty to give Tonga a 20 point lead before Niua slotted another penalty for the USA to put the score at 26-9. Niua kept the scoreboard ticking, but the USA was desperately in need of tries to cut into Tonga’s lead.

Vainikolo dealt the finishing blow to the USA with his second try of the day when Tonga found an overload deep in the Eagle half. The conversion finished out Tonga’s scoring for the match as they held a commanding 33-9 lead.

Despite their poor play throughout the match, the USA made the scoreboard look better with two Andrew Durutalo tries in the last ten minutes. The first try was off of a nice rolling maul and the second started from another maul. The two tries from Durutalo gives him three of the four tries the USA have scored in the PNC this season.

Tonga finishes pool play in the PNC with a 2-1 record while the USA falls to 1-2. Both teams will be back in action at the PNC Finals Day on March 8th.

USA 19
Tries – A. Durutalo 2 (70, 80)
Pens – F. Niua 3 (13, 47, 58)

TONGA 33
Tries – F. Vainikolo 2 (4, 64), T. Veainu (52)
Cons – K. Morath 3 (5, 53, 65)
Pens – K. Morath 4 (16, 24, 37, 55)

USA
1 M. Moeakiola (E. Fry 48 {N. Wallace 78}) 2 P. Thiel (capt.) (Z. Fenoglio HT) 3 C. Baumann 4 L. Stanfill (H. Smith 17) 5 G. Peterson 6 C. Dolan (A. Durutalo 59) 7 S. LaValla 8 A. McFarland 9 S. Suniula 10 T. L’Estrange (M. Petri 50) 11 Z. Test 12 A. Suniula 13 F. Niua 14 B. Thompson 15 T. Hall

TONGA
1 S. Tonga’uiha (S. Taumalolo 48) 2 E. Taione (S. Sakalia 71) 3 H. Aulika 4 U. Kolo’ofai 5 J. Tu’ineau 6 S. Mafi (capt.) 7 J. Ram 8 V. Fihaki (H. T-Pole 63) 9 T. Takulua (S. Ma’ake 71) 10 K. Morath 11 F. Vainikolo 12 A. Fatafehi (L. Fosita 48) 13 S. Piukala 14 T. Veainu 15 O. Katoa (V. Lilo 59)