Manu Samoa Sevens hopes of putting last week’s nightmare in Wellington behind them were crushed quite early at the Sydney Sevens yesterday.

Fiji crushed Sir Gordon Tietjen’s team, 40-0, in an absolute one-sided affair at the Allianz Stadium.

From the outset, it appears the men in blue had not learnt their lesson from last week about winning the ball.

And with Fiji enjoying all the possession, they made Samoa pay with tries to Lutumailagi, Kolinisau, Mulevoro, Veremalua and Tuwai for an impressive win.

Samoa had nothing to show for their efforts.

With that first loss, they needed to win their second game to have any chance of making the cup play offs.

In the end, France won te match at the death to take a win 17-14. 

Samoa was down 10-0 early in the match but came back to score two excellent solo effort tries from Samoa Toloa and Laaloi Leilua to take a 14-10 lead with less than two minutes to play. 

A yellow card to Lafaele Va’a gave France the numerical advantage who were desperate to score with time up to take the win. 

Samoa drew with Wales, 7-7, in its last match last night.  Samoa’s only try came from Ed Fidow.

Today they will contest the Challenge Cup for the second week in a row.