Manu Samoa was crowned the champion of the 2022 Pacific Nation Cup on Saturday, as they dramatically snatched the title from Fiji’s grasp at Churchill Park with a thrilling 23-20 victory.

Fiji has not lost to Samoa in the P.N.C. since the establishment of the tournament. 

The clash between the two teams took place on Saturday afternoon in Lautoka where the boys in blue edged the Vodafone Flying Fijians, after the Fijians led the game 17-3 at half time. Samoa scored 20 points in the second half to win the title.

Samoa Captain Michael Ala’alatoa in an interview with Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (F.B.C.) after the match said he was proud of his boys. 

“We know the Fijians are world class and he showed that in the first half," he said. "They put a lot of pressure on our set piece specially the scrum time. I’m so proud of our boys to hang deep, in the past we would have lost those games.”

Rodney Iona from Samoa booted the first penalty in the first 13th minute into the game, giving Manu Samoa the head start in the match. 

This came on the back of some good defending by Samoa after Fiji unleashed waves of attack in the first few minutes.

Fiji then hit back through number 8 Albert Tuisue who crashed over for a try after a quick tap from the 5 meter line. Ben Volavola added the extras for the home side to lead 7-3.

A solo try by halfback Frank Lomani extended Fiji's lead going into the 30th minute of the game. Volavola then booted another penalty for Fiji team giving them a 17-3 lead just before half-time. 

Samoa came back stronger after the break with hooker Ray Niuia scoring the first try for Samoa through a rolling maul. Iona then added another two points for the boys in blue. 

The next few minutes saw the two sides exchanged penalties, with Fiji still in the lead 20-13.

Samoa then closed the gap through the boot of Iona, after the home side were penalised, before they finally took the lead for the first time through Niuia, who had been at the heart of the visitors' maul.

Fly-half Iona kicked the conversion to make it a 3 point ball game.

Fiji had the last roll of the dice, launching an attack from inside Samoa’s territory but they were not able to break the visitors' defence, as Samoa held on to remain unbeaten.

The disappointed Flying Fijian Captain Waisea Nayacalevu told the F.B.C. that their performance "could have been better."

“We have to build from that, learn from our mistake. We have talked about it all week that hey are going to come hard and it was going to be physical, but we left our shield down.”

Prior to Fiji's defeat by Samoa on Saturday, they were gunning for their sixth PNC title, having already claimed five titles including four in a row between 2015 to 2018. 

Fiji has beaten Samoa in previous PNC tournaments in 2016 (26-16), 2017 (38-16), 2018 (24-22) and 2019 (10-3).