KEY POINTS:
A few minutes into Samoa's final World Cup match against the United States, the band struck up an old standard.
The timing was perfect as the lines of the 1960s Mary Hopkins hit came to mind.
The Samoans were running the ball out of their 22, keeping it
alive, skipping this way and that in search of a gap - just like the old days.
"Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end ..." ran the song as the Samoans looked to end a miserable campaign on a bright note.
The match was of no account in the sense that neither team would make the knockout stage.
No surprise for the Americans, but they still threw everything into it and contributed fully to a rousing contest. But Samoa are regulars in the last eight. That failure hurts and so it mattered to leave France with a win.
And the game which cost them dear was the 19-15 loss to fellow Pacific Islanders Tonga. Tactically, they got it wrong that day, trying to be too European, too organised when they are at their best with their robust, heady, take-a-chance style.
How they must have wished in the days since that defeat at Montpellier that they could turn back to what had worked so thrillingly in the past.
Even then, they might not have beaten a remarkably resilient Tongan side but would have gone down with a bang rather than a whimper.
Early tomorrow, Fiji play Wales in Nantes. A win will put them in the quarter-finals for the first time since the inaugural cup in 1987.
If Tonga have beaten England early today, that would put two Island nations in the last eight for the first time. If Tonga are gone, Fiji have the last chance to maintain the Pacific Islands remarkable cup record _ remarkable given the infrastructure and financial situations of the game they love most of all in the region.
If the Pacific Islands are not represented in the eight, it will be a poor return for the entertainment they've given in the past four weeks.
The Samoans were tipped to be best of the three: they were the first to pack their bags.
"We've probably spent more time in the valleys than the mountain tops," retiring head coach Michael Jones said.
He is going, after three years as assistant coach and four as the boss, believing it's time for new blood, but remains insistent the quality is there within "this special and unique club" of Samoan players.
"We need to analyse where things didn't go according to plan. In terms of a report card, we showed a glimpse of what we are capable of but weren't able to do it when it really mattered, and especially for 80 minutes," Jones said.
But if the Samoans had any doubts how they'd gone down in France, the crowd at the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium in rainy St Etienne told them with a rousing send-off, which also marked the World Cup farewell of ageless Brian Lima, who was ending his fifth campaign. He celebrated by leading, bare chested, a Samoan chant that delighted the spectators. "Hopefully another Brian Lima will be coming up in the next few years," captain Semo Setiti said.
