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Big favourites Samoa withheld an assault from various teams to close out the Oceania Sevens in Tahiti over the weekend.

Despite comfortably seeing off the challenges of Tonga (19-7), Cook Islands (33-7), and Vanuatu (50-0) the Samoans could only squeeze past Papa New Guinea (24-19) before suffering a dramatic 7-5 defeat by Niue.

It was the second time the tiny island has upset Samoa this season, following up on their shock win at the Wellington Sevens back in February.

Samoans still did enough to proceed through to the finals from the round-robin stages and showed their true class in the final beating Tonga again 31-14. With Sevens regulars such as Lolo Lui and Ulae Mai playing for the 15-a-side side that faced Wales in Cardiff, it was up to the likes of Simaika Mikaele and Mikaele Pesamino to inspire the winners.

Papa New Guinea (PNG), under the stewardship of Waisale Serevi, won the Plate that also qualified them for the Commonwealth Games along with Samoa and Tonga. They will also qualify for this season’s NZI Sevens in Wellington and Adelaide Sevens. There they proved to powerful for the heroic Niue side comfortably taking the win.

All hopes rested on a top three placing at Tahiti for Serevi’s men, a 22-0 loss to Niue in the opening match on the first day did not deter the side, as they bounced back on the second day with a 24-0 victory over Vanuatu, a 43-0 thrashing of hosts Tahiti, and close losses to Samoa 19-24 and Tonga 7-12.

The side then thrashed old nemesis Cook Islands on the last round robin game early on the final day, qualifying for the third and fourth place playoff, and plate match against Niue.

“The result here is due to the effort of all players. It was an unbelievable performance,” said Team Manager Malcolm Giheno.

"The work by Serevi on our style of play has given our team a structure that works. Even more, they played out of their skins, to come away with this.”