South Africa buoyant before TriNations

South Africa ran in eight tries to crush Samoa 60-18 at Loftus Versveld, in their final warm-up match before the Tri-Nations series starts this week.

The Springbok fly-half Andre Pretorius scored 20 points on Saturday from seven conversions and two penalties, while centre De Wet Barry and wing Dean Hall both crossed the line twice. It was the Springboks' fourth victory in four Tests under coach Rudolf Straeuli, following two wins against Wales and one against Argentina in the past four weeks.

Samoa, who qualified for next year's World Cup finals by beating Tonga 31-13 last weekend, suffered in the final 15 minutes as 48 hours of travel and the high Pretoria altitude took a combined toll.

Fiji trounced Tonga 47-20 in Nadi on Saturday to qualify for the World Cup finals as Pacific champions. They scored seven tries to two to pip Samoa to top spot in the Pacific Tri-Nations qualifying section, winning a spot in Pool B at the finals alongside France and Scotland.

Samoa now face the prospect of playing South Africa and England in their pool, while Tonga, who were already certain of finishing last in the group, must travel the play-off route.

Japan virtually guaranteed their World Cup passage after their record-breaking victory over Chinese Taipei. The 155-3 thrashing at the National Stadium in Tokyo was Japan's best ever win.

Daisuke Ohata set a national best with eight tries, thus becoming his country's leading scorer with 30 tries, while Andy Millar also wrote himself into the Japanese record books with 12 conversions – even though he only kicked in the second half.

Japan, who began their qualifying campaign with a 90-24 win over South Korea, will play the same opponents in Seoul next weekend hoping to secure their passage.