Hurricanes v Force Match Preview

[Darren]

Hurricanes v Force Match Preview from www.hurricanes.co.nz

Thursday, 16 February 2006

The Hurricanes host the Western Force in New Plymouth on Saturday night in their first home game of the 2006 Rebel Sport Super 14.

The Hurricanes will be eager to carry their form from their opening round 37-19 win over the Blues last Friday into this game against the Force, who lost to the Brumbies 10-25 in their debut Super 14 game in Perth in round one.

Four changes have been made to the Hurricanes playing fifteen who took the field against the Blues.

65-game veteran Paul Tito replaces Luke Andrews at lock for his first run-on start for the Hurricanes since he was injured last year playing the Cats, also in round two.

At loosehead prop John Schwalger replaces Joe McDonnell.

In the backs Ma’a Nonu comes in from the left wing to second five-eighth in place of Tana Umaga, who has been sidelined with a slight calf injury, sustained against the Blues.

Hosea Gear fills the left wing position.

On the bench for the first time in 2006 are backs Tane Tu’ipulotu and Tamati Ellison, who replace Shannon Paku and David Holwell for this game.

A feature of the Hurricanes team for this match will be the Taranaki connection in the forward pack, where four of the eight played for Taranaki in last year’s Air New Zealand NPC. Joining Taranaki tight forwards Andrew Hore, Jason Eaton and Tito is openside flanker Chris Masoe.

For the Force, New Plymouth will also be familiar territory for two of their players. Fullback James Hilgendorf and first five-eighth Brock James, both having played NPC rugby for Taranaki in recent years.

While Hurricanes centre Conrad Smith is familiar with James and Hilgendorf, he admits the Force will largely be an unknown quantity for the Hurricanes, but says the team will be focused on playing their own game well.

“Normally you’ve seen a lot of the players. There’s a few there that we’ve played before with other teams, but a lot of their guys are unknown.”

“You do your own game well and you are not worried too much about how they are playing and the attitude we are going to take for most of our early games is to get our own game right before we worry too much about the other teams.”

Smith is also keen to ignite his midfield combination with Nonu for this game.

“Playing in the midfield is all about a partnership. I have played a bit with Ma’a, who is very good at seeing a gap and finding holes for himself. It is something we have worked on during the week and hopefully we will carry on from the other times that we have played together.”

Kick-off at Yarrow Stadium on Saturday is at 7.35 pm.

By Steven White

Original Article - Hurricanes

[The EnForcer]

It's gonna be real tough......gotta get those first tackles in!!!!!

[Burgs]

Play proud boys, can't ask for more than that.
Rugby is a strange old game and funnier things have happened, the Scots would attest to that wouldn't they TEF?
Catch you all for the post mortem

[Egan]

Lets hope we stay competitive...

There is going to be at least one upset win by a side in the Super 14 this year...lets hope the Force are one of those.

CMON FORCE...

[The EnForcer]

Sad to say I'm on the computer and not in the bar........One of the very few disadvantages of being a dad.

Anyway,

What a game, I reckon the boys were brilliant, overall. Loads of mistakes but what a team. TEAM being the word. I took a lot of positives out of that game and I think it may make a few other teams stink again about how to play us. Rugby is a game of many dimensions and I think our man John is using that very well.


Go the Force and go Scotland...................

[travelling_gerry]

yeah......if we discount the bad start...they were VERY competitive...how many times did we drop the ball with the line in sight or even took the ball over the line and didnt ground it....in fact....I am going to make a prediction....a wine next week against the Chiefs...hows that?

[Darren]

I only caught the radio broadcast (dad disadvantage at play again) , and all that you say sounds spot on TEF - the score line doesn't show the effort, and work the FOrce put in, only the mistakes they made. Looking forward to getting some video footage to watch!

[Irish Welsh boyo]

back line were bad, the whole team was in chaos.

i knew we wouldnt win....

[Darren]

Don't lose heart dude!

71% of territory and 65% of possesion - they did well! It shows that we certainly have a team that can perform and we cetainly have a coach that can capitalise on this.

Remember, its a 3 - 5 year plan to get them competitive, although I think we'll see some of the good stuff much sooner!

[Egan]

I was very impressed with the second half display on my box...

We have played 2 very good teams, will be good to see us play a team in the same League.

The Auckland Blues lost by 20points last week...I don't think our loss is that bad if we look at context.

Ioane, Hilgendorf were my pick of the bunch and Henjak played a much better game.

All in all a much better display then last week, we had more opportunities and our second half we looked far more dangerous and some of the moves were extremeley creative.

It gave me a thrill up my spine, knowing that the future is good.

Looking forward to the game on Friday Night...can't wait.

[The EnForcer]

back line were bad, the whole team was in chaos.

i knew we wouldnt win....

I'm sorry, but I did'n't know we were going to loose.

[.X.]

I gotta agree with TEF and Egan on this one. The boys improvement over last week was obvious, and the future looks bright. If we take out the Hurricanes third try that was a certain Short Arm Penalty to the Force for not throwing the ball in straight, it gives an even better picture.

Looking forward to the coming weeks and I hope that the Perth based members make their way out to the airport to welcome the boys home. They did us very proud today to hold the Hurricanes to 29 points.

Coach, video footage is available

[zacko70]

Overall Force played well, we just need to limit turnovers which cost us dearly. Many teams in super 14 will punish you if ball is turned over. I think Henjak played better but still not up to the standard micth would be hoping on, Henjak needs to make a real impact on the game. I think Doherty had an average game, missed a lot of lineout ball and made some poor decisions. Backline need to run harder, like Ioane or like reds v crusaders game. It looks like our backline is too static and is not running hard enough into the gap but rather waiting for the tackle.

I believe that we should secure the ball upfront more before we give the backs the ball. If our backs are to gain confidence they will need go forward ball where the defence is back peddling and we are therefore able to run hard at gaps.

We will beat the chiefs next week in perth, they looked quite poor against a weak cats side. Overall i would give the force a 7/10 for the match with the areas to improve on ball security and backline variation.

Zacko70

[Burgs]

Yep, gotta agree that I saw what everyone else except IW boyo saw.
Have commented over at http://thewholeforce.com/showthread.php?t=1543 and will post my "official take" in Match reports directly.
It's encouraging to see these comments above as I thought it may have been just me with my head in the clouds but obviously others are seeing signs of the Mitch grand plan coming together as well.
Let's all bare in mind that Mitch has maintained from day one that he will take three years to develop the team, watching them develop is the bonus for me until then!

[Burgs]

By the way, a Fijian mate over at the mine confirmed that Ioane is indeed pronounced "You-Are-Knee" as the kiwi commentators were saying in case you were like me and didn't know better!
He said he was pretty sure it was a name of Fijian origin.