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New Zealand’s win over Australia makes them the bookies’ favourite to win the tournament.

Kiwis hooker Issac Luke is back after serving his suspension for a lifting tackle on Sonny Bill Williams in the NRL finals.

Dean Whare and Greg Eastwood were seen nursing injuries at training early in the week. Whare has been named in the starting side but Eastwood is out.

I'm Steven Holloway and will provide all the colour, tweets, analysis and play by play coverage of today's game. To join in on the chat click 'comment now' and have your say.

The teams:
Kiwis
1-Peta Hiku 2-Jason Nightingale 3-Dean Whare 4-Shaun Kenny-Dowall 5-Manu Vatuvei 6-Kieran Foran 7-Shaun Johnson 8-Jesse Bromwich 9-Issac Luke 10-Adam Blair 11-Simon Mannering (captain) 12-Kevin Proctor 13-Jason Taumalolo
Interchange: 14-Lewis Brown 15-Suaia Matagi 16-Martin Taupau 17-Tohu Harris 18-Bodene Thompson

Samoa
1-Tim Simona 2-Antonio Winterstein 3-Tim Lafai 4-Joey Leilua 5-Daniel Vidot 6-Ben Roberts 7-Kyle Stanley 8-Isaac Liu 9-Pita Godinet 10-David Fa'alogo (c) 11-Frank Pritchard 12-Leeson Ah Mau 13-Josh McGuire
Interchange: 14-Dunamis Lui 15-Jesse Sene-Lefao 16-Sauaso Sue 17-Mose Masoe 18-Dominique Peyroux 19-Penani Manumalealii

We are nearly underway with the players making their final preparations. It's a beautiful sunny day in Whangarei and the scene is set for a cracker.

Kiwis make it up to the 30m line on their fifth kick and Foran puts the Samoan defence under pressure with a bomb.

Samoa only make it to halfway on their fifth and their kick is straight down the throat of Peter Hiku.

Samoa start their set with a scrum inside their own 20 and they make it up to halfway on their fifth tackle.

TRY SAMOA!

But the conversion is wide and Samoa lead 4-0.

Kiwis pick up a penalty on their own 20m line. Samoa holding on too long in the tackle.

It looks good, a try will be awarded. Foran burst through the Samoan defence right under the posts to touch down.

Johnson slots the conversion from right in front and the Kiwis are in the lead. Kiwis 6 Samoa 4.

Kiwis progress to halfway on their last and Foran kicks in behind but it's too long and dribbles out of play.

Every kick that goes in the air gets caught in the swirling wind and becomes a lottery. This time it's Johnson who kicks and the ball takes a huge, ugly bounce before spiralling out over the dead ball line. Samoan scrum feed 30m out.

Daniel Vidot has pounced on a perfectly weighted kick into the corner and Samoa are back in the lead.

Kyle Stanley misses with the conversion again and Samoa still lead by two.