Frustrated Force vow to keep fighting

[Macattack]

Perhaps the Tahs could be a feeder team for us now, not convinced I'd take any of their back row though!

[Macattack]

Ella really has the hates for the Force and Foley - check out his latest piece

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opin...-1227347609882

really hope he watched last night

[wholetruth]

Ella really has the hates for the Force and Foley - check out his latest piece

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opin...-1227347609882

really hope he watched last night

Can't open it there's a firewall. What'd he say

[brokendown gunfighter]

just the usual bagging of Foley and the Force-its probably ghost written for him by Growden

[blueandblack]

Coments from the page:

Robert 5 HOURS AGO
18 - 11 Mark. Let me guess, they should shut down the Force and the Rebels and send all the players to Tah land, the only place in the known universe where rugby is played?


John 18 HOURS AGO
Probably good idea to steer clear of Julia Cheika for a while Mark. Good luck.

[wholetruth]

Anyone able to post it?

[SG1]

They say those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it. If that’s true the Western Force are in urgent need of some schooling.

Force administrators could not stop patting themselves on the back when they secured former All Blacks coach John Mitchell as the 2006 expansion franchise’s inaugural coach.

Not unexpectedly the Force finished last on the Super Rugby table in their debut season, but climbed to seventh place in their second campaign with a team of star players including Matt Giteau, lured from the east coast by the promise of third-party riches.

Thinking seventh out of 14 was some kind of wonderful achievement, the Force rushed in and extended Mitchell’s contract. Of course, Mitchell’s tenure in Perth ended in tears with a player revolt forcing him out a few years later.

Former Force assistant coach Richard Graham replaced Mitchell, but after a couple of poor seasons he bailed out mid-contract to coach the Queensland Reds where he has done no better.

Graham was replaced by Michael Foley, who had guided the NSW Waratahs to just four wins the previous season.

Foley led the Force to third-last with just four wins in his first season in charge in 2013, but lifted them to eighth place last year with a club record nine wins.

History repeated itself when the Force extended Foley’s contract, which indicated just how low they set their standards in the west. When will the Force learn that finishing mid-table is not something to celebrate?

How the Force would yearn for that sort of mediocrity right now. After upsetting the Waratahs in Sydney in round one, the Force are on the bottom of the table with a 1-10 win-loss record, their 10 straight losses a club record.

Why have the Force dropped from the middle last season to the bottom of the heap?

Sure the Force’s inspirational captain Matt Hodgson was injured for much of the first part of the season, but they should not be so reliant on one player.

It reminds me of the Waratahs’ over-reliance on Phil Waugh when Foley was the forwards coach at NSW.

I’m not big on statistics, but the numbers tell part of the story. The Force are dead last in clean breaks (5.1), tackles (87), tackle percentage (83), lineouts lost (2.7 per game), lineout steals (0.2 per game) and scrum steals (0).

It’s a good thing Foley is a set-piece guru otherwise their lineout and scrum would be really rubbish.

But the Force are No 1 in the competition in time in possession, averaging 17 minutes and 49 seconds and ruck success at 96 per cent. It’s no wonder that Foley knocked back Wallabies coach Michael Cheika’s invitation to join his coaching staff for the upcoming World Cup because he has enough on his plate right now.

Yet the Force have averaged fewer points (16.5) than any team other than the Queensland Reds (13).

Force sympathisers in the media have noted how gallant they have been in defeat. Well, here’s another telling statistic. The Force have been limited to single figures in the first half of 10 of their 11 games this year, which means they have scored most of their points when the games are already over.

Maybe the Force are consoling themselves with their consolation tries, but they need to face some harsh realities.

The statistics are not that much different to what they produced last year. The real difference is they got away with a couple of wins they should not have. I see a lot of similarities with the Melbourne Rebels this year, but that’s another story.

This is a team that is doing nothing and going nowhere even though they have a large number of talented players and an experienced coaching staff.

Sure, the Force do have an ability to frustrate their opponents, but that is not a long-term strategy for success.

If you reward mediocrity, that’s what you will get and this has to change if Australian rugby wants a firm footprint in Western Australia.

Let’s see how the Force fare in their last five games of the season, starting with the Waratahs in Perth tonight, a team they have shown they can annoy.

There is still time for Foley to vindicate the faith the Force officials showed in him by finishing the season strongly and raising hope for next year. I just hope the administration had enough sense to put a performance clause in Foley’s contract because it looks like deja vu all over again in the west.

[Scozzie]

Sounds like this was the article that was read to the Force before the game last night....!

[blueandblack]

My Dad has a paper copy of The Aus. There was an article from Bret Harris about the Force also.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...-1227347566112

[wholetruth]

Unbelievable.I'm sorry but after the last two Ella pieces about the Force he should retire from "writing" as quickly as he retired from rugby. The man has no idea.
Any chance of posting the Harris story just so I can get even angrier

[James]

A weak effort from Mark Ella. Easy to pick faults. Far less easy to come up with solutions. He mistakes acceptance of mediocrity for support through thick and thin. He also doesn't see the progress the Force is making with local development. The good news for us is that once our local production line has pushed out a lot of the deadwood, we will overcome those franchises who have basket-case administration (Reds) or administration that are a pit of vipers (Waratahs).

[GIGS20]

Unbelievable.I'm sorry but after the last two Ella pieces about the Force he should retire from "writing" as quickly as he retired from rugby. The man has no idea.
Any chance of posting the Harris story just so I can get even angrier

Come off it boys, we're two and ten and we're not NSW or Qld......the myopic wankers in the East Coast media will take any chance they can get to dismiss us as irrelevant. The only way we can stop it is to prove conclusively that we aren't.

And two wins over the Tahs, just doesn't go far enough.

[SG1]

Unbelievable.I'm sorry but after the last two Ella pieces about the Force he should retire from "writing" as quickly as he retired from rugby. The man has no idea.
Any chance of posting the Harris story just so I can get even angrier

The NSW Waratahs will be look to prevent the Western Force from gaining a permanent psychological edge against them when they meet in their Super Rugby match in Perth tonight.

The bottom-of-the-table Force have won their past two games against the defending champions, both by 12-point margins, including a 25-13 win in the opening round of the season in Sydney.

“They definitely were targeting that first game of the season. We were targeting the whole season,” Waratahs halfback Nick Phipps said. “We didn’t turn up on the day. That round one was a bit of a wake-up call. A few of the senior players have spoken about it.

“We have addressed it since then, but in saying that they also beat us this time last year when we were over there. They definitely have the rub on us at the moment. “They think they’ve got the blueprint to beat us. We just have to prove them wrong this weekend.

“Hodgo (Force captain Matt Hodgson) was talking the other day about how they took the physicality to us, they slowed our ball down at the breakdown. They are things they are entitled to have their opinion about, but we know how we are going to go about how we play. It will be a classic game again. Us wanting to run the ball and them playing a very territory based game.

“Check (Waratahs coach Michael Cheika) has made it pretty clear how important this game is for us. There is a heightened sense for us because we know they could easily put three losses in a row on top of us.

“We have to be playing at our best this weekend. We have to make sure we have those hard carries and those directors out the back leading the troops around and hopefully we can put a good performance out there.”

While the Force have had the Waratahs’ measure, they have not been able to beat anyone else this season, losing 10 games in a row for the first time. We can’t even look at their previous record this year except for round one and when we played them over here last year,” Phipps said.

“They’ve always got a good crowd. They get up at home. We haven’t even thought about the fact they are on a bit of a losing streak. We can only think about the last time we played them.

“We know they have only lost by narrow margins. They have been in it. They even played a game with a red card for 60 minutes and still almost came away with it. They are a dangerous team and they’ve got a lot of players who fly under the radar.

“They have a lot of great players who can definitely turn a game on its head and a lot of emerging players and younger players as well. They will be looking for an opportunity, not only against the Wallabies coach (Cheika), but the comp’s winner last year.”

The Waratahs have won three games in a row for the first time this season, but they have come at a combined margin of just 10 points, while their first four victories came by 10 points or more.

“I’m proud of the fact we are able to eke those wins out and sneak away with them, but we would also like to be able to put a few more points on the board,” Phipps said.

“We knew to win the comp this year we would have to do it a different way. That’s why we’ve gone about the style of play we have. We know a lot of teams have been focusing on us as the benchmark. They have got our mettle a few times. Hopefully, this week we will be able to open up a little bit more with the style we want to play.”

Meanwhile, Phipps will catch up with his old Sydney University teammate Ben McCalman after the game to try to find out whether the Force No 8 plans to join the Waratahs next year.

“We are all wondering what he is doing,” Phipps said. “We haven’t heard too much, especially this week, we don’t do a lot of talking.’’

[Scozzie]

............but we would also like to be able to put a few more points on the board,” Phipps said.

And I'm sure they would have liked to have put more points on the board last night as well.

It also sounds like Phipps has been listening to Ella too much....!!

[WF1964]

Shame on you Mark Ella, for being so disrespectful to another Australian franchise. As a former player, have you not heard of "growing the game"?
The national team, you know the one you played for, needs it's base to continue to grow if we want to improve our competitiveness against NZ & RSA.