On a balmy Sunday lunchtime, Samoa beat USA at the Brighton stadium. Passionate, muscular, littered with mistakes it was a fine game of rugby. Albeit something of after the Lord Mayor’s Show, following on the heels of Japan’s astonishing victory in this same stadium.Indeed the place appeared still to be full of Japanese news crews taking footage of the British newspaper headlines of their team’s historic triumph. Samoa and the USA had a lot to live up to.It began with a war dance. The Samoan Siva Tau was received with all due respect. The Americans lining up opposite must have wondered what part of their cultural heritage they might exploit in response to its historic resonance; perhaps next time they could open a branch of McDonald’s on the halfway line. The Samoans, with an average collar size in three figures, were on a different scale altogether, enormous. But it was the Americans who made the first physical charge, Thretton Apalamo of London Welsh securing the first big hit, when to yell of encouragement, took out Rey Lee-Lo of Cardiff, who was obliged to leave the field dazed.The Samoans, though, were not deflected, and began to dominate. Showing dazzling handling, full of through the legs and underarm passing, they were also on top at the set piece. There was no surprise when they took the lead on seven minutes through a Tusi Pisi penalty. The Samoans were helped in their dominance by the fact the Americans kept making mistakes, kept giving away kickable penalties. And they took further advantage of American vulnerability on 20 minutes when, after a series of bullocking runs, the fullback Tim Nanai-Williams dropped on to a beautiful, deceptive grub kick from Pisi to score the first try.USA, though, was not out of contention. To shouts of ‘Go Eagles’, which will not have gone down well with the usual residents of this place, they registered a dazzling breakaway try. McGinty led the charge, feeding in Chris Wyles of Saracens to score, much to the noisy excitement of a crowd, very clearly favouring the underdogs (and how often can you that about the USA). But McGinty missed the conversion, and another penalty given away in front of the posts allowed Pisi to make it 14-8 to Samoa at half time.