Brisbane, Sydney: Samoa gave England a massive fright before going down 32-26 in a thrilling opening game of the Four Nations rugby league tournament in Brisbane on Saturday.

The Samoans led 22-20 with 20 minutes left before going down narrowly in a brutal and entertaining classic.

The lead swapped five times as the two sides crossed for five tries each, but it was the English who had the composure and attacking precision to seal the result.

The closest a minnow fourth team had previously come to the big three of the international league was when France were smashed 34-12 by England in 2009.

But Samoan coach Matt Parish tempered his pride at putting a mighty scare through the English.

“I thought we blew a great opportunity,” Parish said. “It is probably a massive learning curve in this competition but I’m very proud of the way we came back.

“We created enough opportunities to win tonight but we didn’t execute and probably didn’t get the rub of the green with a couple of calls.”

The call that most frustrated the highly physical Samoans was Australian referee Gerard Sutton’s decision to allow play-on from Michael Shenton’s highball fumble over the top of fullback Tim Simona just after super-sub Pita Godinet had stolen the lead with two slick dummy-half darts.

The ball spilt free to the right just before the goal-line where Joel Tomkins pounced and scored for a 26-22 advantage.

From England’s next set of six tackles, Sam Tomkins leapt high over Simona to take another Matty Smith bomb to scramble over for a try.

Led by Frank Pritchard and Josh McGuire, Samoa kept attacking for Antonio Winterstein to cross for a try but in the end it was goal-kicking which cost Samoa a slice of history.

Gareth Widdop slotted six-from-six, compared to three from five by the Samoans.

Relieved England coach Steve McNamara admitted his side dodged a bullet in a “tremendous game”.

“I knew that sort of game was coming,” he said. “We’re a brand new team, we’ve got so many new faces, we’ve travelled from one end of the world to the other and played in pretty extreme [steamy] conditions for an Englishman.

“They put us under a lot of pressure and we had to dig ourselves out of some dark places at times to win.”

England take on hosts Australia in Melbourne next Sunday [November 2], while Samoa face New Zealand in Whangarei on Saturday.

Wallaby Kurtley Beale will, meanwhile, miss Australia’s spring tour of Europe, despite being cleared for selection by a code of conduct tribunal, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) said.

The tribunal found Beale guilty of sending an offensive text message to an ARU employee and fined him Aus$45,000 (US$38,500) but did not suspend him, meaning he was eligible to play.

“The Australian Rugby Union today confirmed Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika has advised Kurtley Beale will not join the squad for the Spring Tour,” an ARU spokesman said.

“From time to time there are changes to personnel during tours, due to injury or other matters, and we will advise if there are any changes to this position.”

The Wallabies left on Friday for their five-match tour to Europe, and Beale had been considered likely to join the team following the tribunal’s decision.

ARU chief executive Bill Pulver said late Friday he would inform Cheika of the tribunal’s decision about Beale, admitting the player had been involved in a number of off-field incidents.

“I don’t want to speculate right now, on the future in relation to Kurtley but I think it’s fair to say he has had a lot of indiscretions,” Pulver told reporters.

Beale sent the phone message to team business manager Di Patston, who has since resigned from her position.

The tribunal could not establish whether a second more offensive text message and photograph had been sent by Beale, and he avoided suspension and having his contract terminated.