England take on Samoa this weekend, Saturday 25th November, at Twickenham in another 3pm kick off. They come into the back of the game having inflicted a crushing defeat on Australia last weekend, 30-6 and confidence in the camp will be sky high.
Samoa however are no push overs, running Scotland close 44-38 last Saturday at Murrayfield. England pose a much tougher test than the Scots but will not want to take the Samoan’s lightly and are expected to field a strong starting 15 for the fixture.
Betting Preview & Match Odds
The bookmakers have installed England as firm favourites for this tie, and that’s not unexpected, pricing the home side up at a massive 1/150 on. Samoa are equally un-fancied at 14/1 to win the game with the draw priced up at 33/1.
More interestingly, Betvictor (full review here), have set the 3-way handicap line at England -34.0 points. Betting the other side of that line, Samoa at +34.0 points priced 10/11, might well be the value play of the day given their performance against Scotland on November 11th and their recent decent display against Wales.
Team News
England will be without Nathan Hughes for this fixture, the number eight is back with home club Wasps recovering from bruising to the right knee. He’s not expected to feature again for 2-4 weeks. Jonathan Joseph and Anthony Watson are both also returning to their club sides and won’t feature against Samoa.
Samoa are reporting no new injury concerns for the game and will likely field the same starting 15 that faced Scotland at Murrayfield.
Previous Line-ups:
Here’s how both sides lined up in their latest fixtures:
England (vs Australia) – 15 A.Watson, 14, J.May, 13 J. Joseph, 12 O.Farrell, 11. E.Daily, 10 G.Ford, 9 B.Youngs, 1 M.Vunipola, 2 D.Hartley, 3 D.Cole, 4 J.Launchbury, 5. C.Lawes, 6 C.Robshaw, 7 S.Underhill, 8 N.Hughes
Samoa (vs Scotland) – 15 A.Tuala, 14 P.Perez, 13 K.Fonotia, 12 R.Lee-Lo, 11 D.Lemi, 10 T.Nanai-Williams, 9 P.Cowley, 1 J.Lay, 2 M.Leiataua, 3 D. Brighouse, 4. J.Tyrell, 5 C.Vui, 6 P.Faasalele, 7 TJ.Loane, 8 J.Lam
Match Preview & Form
England have won their last six international matches with victories over the Barbarians, a hat-trick of results vs Argentina and a win last weekend against Australia. They are unbeaten since March this year.
Samoa on the other hand have managed only one win in their last six which came 25-23 against Canada back in November 2016. This year they’ve been demolished 78-0 by the All Blacks but have shown promise in a 17-19 defeat to Wales and 38-44 loss to Scotland.
Although England are rightly overwhelming favourites to bag themselves another win at the weekend the margin of that victory may be somewhat closer than most anticipated. Couple Samoa’s recent improved performances with a under motivated England side and you’ve got a potential sticking point… one which we expect England to come through but a 20-30 points swing appears most likely at this point in time.
Kick off is at 3pm on Saturday 25th November and you can watch the match live on Sky Sports Action.
The post England v Samoa Preview & Team News appeared first on Planet Rugby.