Samoa got off to a winning start at the Paris Sevens, defeating Canada 19-21 in their first game of the final round of the World Rugby Sevens Series.

It's their fourth win from four games against Canada this season, and they opened the scoring inside of two minutes when Alamanda Motuga made a break before setting up Tomasi Alosio for a try.

Canada held possession for a full couple of minutes before Mike Fuailefau went over the tryline, but Nathan Hirayama couldn't convert leaving the score 5-7.

Motuga offloaded nicely to Alosio again, and he should have had a double with less than a minute left in the half but fumbled the ball on his way to the tryline.

Canada made Samoa pay when Andrew Coe stepped around three defenders to score with the final play, and make it 12-7 at halftime.

After a Canada knock on in their own 22, Johnny Samuelu snapped up the ball and quickly recycled it to Motuga who gave Samoa the lead inside the first four minutes of the second half.

Samoa had the ball again, but Elisapeta Alofipo elected to kick in behind, surrendering possession.

Coe again made Samoa pay after some nice offloading, and Canada had a five point lead with two minutes remaining.

Captain David Afamasaga made a tremendous run from kickoff, putting Canada on the backfoot so Laaloi Leilua could scoop the ball up from the base of the ruck, dummy, and score a try under the posts.

Samoa sent the kickoff deep with the final play, and Afamasaga and Alosio combined to win the breakdown penalty that sealed the win.