The last time Wales played a team from the South Seas it marked one of their low points of the decade. Determined to play a structured game against Fiji to take them through to the 2007 World Cup quarter-finals, they found themselves suckered into a free-for-all and a flight home.
That defeat in Nantes prompted the Welsh Rugby Union to entice Warren Gatland from Waikato to take over as head coach, and Wales are now far better equipped to stick to a gameplan against Samoa in Cardiff tomorrow night.
They will need to be. Despite having limited preparation time, Samoa will ask questions of Wales in a way that New Zealand did not last Saturday. Their natural inclination is to run rather than kick, preferring the flamboyant to the disciplined, and they will look to force mistakes in the opening exchanges.
It will be a question of how quickly Wales react to the unfamiliar. They have the not inconsiderable advantage of having been together as a squad for the past three weeks, but they are fielding inexperienced players in key positions in the outside-half, Dan Biggar, and the flanker, Sam Warburton.
"You can talk to players as often as you like one to one but nothing beats the experience of playing," said the Wales attack coach, Rob Howley. "We have stressed the importance of playing the game on our terms and being aware of Samoa's strengths because they have a number of players who play top-flight club rugby in Europe, but it all comes down to execution.."
Samoa have won three of their previous six Tests with Wales and they were the first team to defeat them at the Millennium Stadium back in 1999. The islanders reached their peak that year, but the gains they made towards the end of the amateur era have been progressively eroded as the leading countries, in a dash for cash, arranged more matches against each other and confined the emerging nations to the margins. Australia will have played more tier one countries this year than Samoa have faced this decade. The pity for the game is that Samoa, not forgetting Fiji and Tonga, play a far more watchable brand of rugby. Discipline, or the lack of it, has too often been their undoing with players finding themselves in the sin-bin, and not just for head-high tackles.
It is in part because of the way they play the game, but it also reflects the inadequate amount of time the players, who are spread across six countries, have together. One of their squad this week described their approach as based on the chaos theory, but there is far more to their game than that.
The rugby world talks about expansion and making the game truly global, but the big boys keep their backs turned and Samoa have not entertained a tier-one side for six years.
The game is in danger of contracting off the field as well but Samoa can look to Fiji for their lead, not just in Nantes but in Cardiff on a Friday night in 2005, when Wales needed a late drop-goal to win by a point.
