http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...44b-1494800776
"If there is one thing this drawn-out saga of culling an Australian Super Rugby side has done, it has been to lay bare the character of people and teams, good and bad. Yesterday morning in Buenos Aires, the character of the Western Force was on display — and it was magnificent to watch.
For months now, the Force have feared — and with good reason — that they would be the team cut from Super Rugby. Rather than roll over and play dead, they have come out fighting with every pitchfork and sledgehammer that came to hand.
It takes some gumption, suing your own boss, but that effectively is what the Force have done, taking the Australian Rugby Union to court. Suddenly, too, their press releases have lost all semblance of neutrality. They’ve become bold and assertive and, while it might just be my imagination, the fighting words they’re putting out to the world do seem to bear the imprint of Malcolm McCusker, the former West Australian governor who has taken on the Force’s case pro bono.
But while the legal avenue seems to be working and indeed looks to have deflected the ARU’s focus away from the Force and on to the Melbourne Rebels, nothing speaks of their determination quite like performances on the pitch. Coach Dave Wessels was bitterly disappointed with last week’s effort against the Sharks in Durban, but that only made him and the team doubly determined to defeat the Jaguares in BA.
It rolls off the tongue easily enough, doesn’t it, beating the Jaguares at home? But the fact is that of the five sides that have played at Velez Sarsfield this season, only the Sharks have enjoyed any success there. And when you consider that coach Raul Perez selected a virtual Pumas-strength side, with a Test-quality bench to boot, suddenly the magnitude of what the Force achieved shines through.
The fact is that the 16-6 scoreline is actually misleading. The Force should actually have won by more. No 8 Richard Hardwick should have scored twice, once in the first half when he reached out over the tryline and dropped the ball; the second time when, presumably having learnt his lesson, he kept the ball close to his chest and didn’t reach out for the line.
But the real travesty was when referee Ben O’Keeffe disallowed a try to James Verity-Amm just after the break because of supposed interference by tighthead Tetera Faulkner.
Really, what is it with New Zealand referees and Buenos Aires? Kiwis are not only the best players in Super Rugby but the best referees as well, but put them in front of a crowd of passionate Argentinians and their brain turns to mush.
The Reds complained bitterly about Paul Williams after their match in Buenos Aires — as I’m sure the Brumbies also wanted to do after the Lions match on Friday night — but certainly O’Keeffe’s ruling that Faulkner had provided obstruction for winger Semisi Masirewa defied every known law — except perhaps for the quantum mechanics law that an atom can be in two places at once. No, bad example. The only way Faulkner could have avoided a penalty under O’Keeffe’s logic was to dematerialise.
Yet still the Force prevailed and the more the game unfolded, the more you realised how exceptionally well-coached this side is. Every player, be he a starter or finisher, played the same way, adhering to the game plan. They attacked the transition zone relentlessly and their physicality was, if not intimidating, at least highly unsettling.
Adam Coleman surely must be the first player selected for the Wallabies this winter. It could be argued that no Australian controls a game quite like Bernard Foley or that no one has the work rate of Michael Hooper, but Coleman’s aggression is seriously scary. He hates losing and he’s indiscriminate about who he applies that trait to ... Jaguares, Pumas, All Blacks. He didn’t let up against the Jaguares and his aggression and physicality spread throughout the team.
There was, as usual, no shortage of passion from the Argentinians but they looked uncomfortable when the Force returned it in kind. When outside centre Curtis Rona slung Test prop Ramiro Herrera to the ground and then was awarded a penalty because Herrera retaliated, it showed perfectly the absurdity of rugby laws sometimes — but also the effectiveness of the Force’s “take no prisoners approach”.
The stunning victory has thrust the Force right into the mix for the Australian conference title and a home final but Wessels is content to leave those discussions to the media pundits. All that he is concerning himself with is making the Force as competitive as they can be in Super Rugby. In his mind, the permutations and combinations about who finishes where in the conference can safely be left to others.
To hear him talk about his side and how he intends approaching the next 18 months is to be taken back in time to 2010, with Ewen McKenzie discussing the Reds — though without Wessels’ South African accent.
There is no talk of wins and losses, only of performance and whether the Force have achieved the correct “trajectory” or are on the right “flight path”. McKenzie spoke precisely that way in 2010, the year before the Reds won their title.
Technically, they play like Billy Meakes, their inside centre, times 15 ... neatly, precisely. Under Wessels and forwards coach Joe Barakat, they outscrummed arguably the greatest scrummaging nation of them all, and from there played simply but with purpose and pace.
The Michael Foley legacy in this side is unmistakeable but Wessels has added another layer to it, a sense of soul, perhaps. The Force have taken over the old Brumbies’ role, where outcasts and rejects went to find a home. And flourished.
It’s way too early to suggest Wessels could become a future Wallabies coach but, hell, where’s the fun of writing a rugby column if you cannot predict such things. The ARU and its chief operation’s officer, Rob Clarke, have come under fire lately but one thing they spectacularly got right was appointing Wessels as Force coach. The sceptics, myself among them, believed he had been chosen as a convenient and cheap last coach of the Force.
He never saw himself in that light, however, and convinced his players to come with him on a wild and tumultuous ride."
