Walsh-inspired Australia crush irate Samoa to reach World Cup final

Samoa had taken the pb aft 3 minutes erstwhile Stephen Crichton – whose golden-point driblet extremity bushed England successful the 2022 semi-final – landed a punishment successful beforehand of the posts.

But Australia led soon aft erstwhile Tom Dearden picked up from a scrum and blasted done the non-existent enactment to score.

Australia's adjacent 2 tries came aft they got six again acknowledgment to mediocre Samoa discipline. Jacob Preston burst nether the posts connected 15 minutes; 10 minutes later, Tom Trbojevic - joint-leading effort scorer astatine this Men's World Cup - got his eighth effort of the tournament, benefiting aft Crichton reached into the ruck.

Walsh got successful connected the enactment - celebrating with a backflip - and the scoring was topped earlier half-time erstwhile Bradman Best bounced disconnected tackles and into the corner.

Both sides were fired up by determination rivalry, arsenic the Siva Tau showed pre-match. Samoa's Brian To'o leaned his forehead into the look of Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, the Australia prop who played for Samoa successful 2019.

But Samoa's passionateness dissolved into vexation arsenic the crippled got distant - not helped by immoderate questionable refereeing decisions.

The astir egregious came connected the half-hour, erstwhile Crichton appeared to person grounded to adjacent the people to 16-6 aft Francis Manuleleua had beaten Walsh to a precocious ball.

But a slow-motion replay led to the debatable decision Manuleleua had knocked on. It was the last straw for immoderate Samoa players - Spencer Leniu was sin-binned for speaking retired of crook to referee Adam Gee conscionable earlier the break.

Crichton did get his effort successful the 2nd fractional aft Walsh dropped a bomb, and Izack Tago scored successful the country with 18 minutes left.

But Walsh rapidly responded aft some Samoan scores, keeping them astatine arm's magnitude portion scoring his archetypal planetary hat-trick. Bostock added gloss with 8 to go.

The harm was done - mostly by Samoa to themselves.