Force v Stormers, March 31st 2006

[Darren]

Force Lineup:
1. Gareth Hardy
2. Brendan Cannon (Happy 33rd Birthday for next Wednesday Brendan!)
3. Angus Scott
4. John Welborn
5. Nathan Sharpe (c)
6. Luke Doherty
7. Richard Brown
8. Scott Fava (He's Ba-ack!)
9. Chris O'Young
10. James Hilgendorf
11. Digby Ioane
12. Scott Staniforth
13. Josh Graham
14. Haig Sare
15. Cameron Shepherd (Happy 23rd Birthday for Yesterday Cam!)
16. Tai McIsaac
17. David Fitter
18. David Pusey
19. Matt Hodgson
20. Matt Henjak (Remember to cheer him on!)
21. Scott Daruda
22. Gavin DeBartolo (Happy 24th Birthday for Wednesday Gav!)

[Egan]

Will be starting the

HILGY HILGY Chant

to piss Luke off...

[peterss]

Edited by Coach - Bugger - I was replying and acidentally edited your post and deleted its content there Peterss, sorry! Feel free to edit again or delete or what ever - I can;t get the original back

[MysticBalls]

This is a great opprtunity for the Force to post their first win. Its been said that the Stormers were in town to watch last weeks game when they had the bye. Teams should be better after a bye, but has anyone else noticed that this was not true of both the Brumbies and Chiefs recently when they played after their bye. They both came out 'flat' in the first half, and lost the match, only narrowly!

My point is that the Stormers will be similarly flat in the first half, and this is when the Force can really gain the ascendancy, putting on as many points as possible by halftime.

Stormers have a lot of pressure on them, with the threatened relegation system in Sth AFR for next year(currently under review), and they haven't got enough competition points or form this year. They'll be pushing passes and pressuring themselves. Force have to just be calm because the openings will appear. The Stormers don't want to be the first Saffa team to lose to the Force, their press won't be too kind!

The heat is on the Stormers with their young team, many being on their first overseas tour.
The Force have a golden opprtunity to capitalise with its strongest and most stable team yet.
GO FORCE !!

[The Goose Stepper]

Force look awesome early, they have continued where they left off last week.

[Sweetooth1]

boo bloody hoo.
what happened??? aw well, off for another

[The EnForcer]

Well, from what I saw, they did us proud.

Yes, there were mistakes and between us we can probably pick them all. But what encourages me is not the fact that we played some great rugby tonight, it's the obvious disappointment shown by the team at the end. I can now see that they have the passion now. There is a change.....I guess for the romantics it can be called the quickening of coming of age, but for the rest, it's just becoming a real team.


Our Pride and Joy,
The Western Force

Well done lads!

[Chief]

One point ball-game....what a heart-breaker.
Was highly impressed with the boys tonight, they deserved the win and were robbed of the win in the final minutes of the game.

Hopefully our form can be carried into our NZ tour and perhaps some wins can be put up on the table....who knows?
A great game of rugby.

[MysticBalls]

A heartbreaker for sure. In the lead with 4 mins to go. What a great effort. A real match.

As predicted,Stormers didn't wake up till 25 min mark with two tries in as many minutes up the middle of paddock. Richard Brown has been brilliant in cover defence, and his early departure to injury in the first minutes cost Force later in game.

So many excellent passages and tries. O'Young passed the test. Doherty,Hodgson,Scott played well. In fact everyone did. Great team effort.

I liked a sign I saw in the crowd "I HAVE FAITH" ! Says it all really.

[Burgs]

Well TEF, Chief and Mystic have pretty much stolen my thunder!
Totally agree with all three of you fellas.
I think in the end, what it came down to was the Stormers knew better how to steal a win than the Force knew how to protect a lead. A couple of different decisions on the last couple of restarts could well have seen a far more satisfactory result for the Force.
That "I HAVE FAITH" sign was great, full marks to whoever brought it! I reckon against the Crusaders we should run with the theme started and write similar ones with "So Do I" and "Me Too".
All in all this is a great effort and I really believe it has been a pivotal match for the club that, in the future, will prove to be the turning point in our fortunes. The full squad wil have felt this loss in their hearts and their guts. This is the type of team building moment in time that will turn these young junior players into the hardest mothers in the comp, who will run till they drop and rather tackle themselves to a standstill than feel that kind of loss again.
I am greatly encouraged by this result and, regardless of the results for rest of this season, I have now seen enough to know that we are the real deal and there are great times ahead in the next few years.
Well done fellas, I'm sure after some of the dissapointment fades you will realise just how well you played and how far the team has come in such a short time.

[travelling_gerry]

I think I might be in trouble.........my wife....who is only a recent convert to Rugby....has fallen in love with Digby.......I told her that he was only 19 years old and she got this glaze over her eyes and a silly look

[Darren]

I'm sure she and my wife could become best of friends!

We were listening to a radio broadcats when the commentator said something about their impressive backs, to which the better half said pointed out the broad shoulders the lad in the 11 jersey was packing - Ioane

[travelling_gerry]

true Coach.....I bought a set of those "sports ears" 3 weeks ago for myself and my wife said "let me have a listen".....well she kept them on till half time and after coming back from the toilets (long queue) she was still able to keep up with the game while she was away......so when I asked for them back she told be to do something along the lines of sex and travel (**** off) ....she was keeping them...so I had to buy another set.

she find them very informative to hear what the ref is saying.....or in the case of last night how John Welborn was expressing his disgust at the player on the ground....