JargantinaOriginally Posted by westies man
Yes and also Peter Grant on the bench in 22.. I spoke with David Berrie from WF Media and he apologised for the mistakes in the line break.. He responded very quickly and made no excuse to the mistakes.. I thought he had a great and professional manner re this..
I thought the Reds looked more of a threat than the Tahs did the week before.
Japan and the Pacific Islands for Aussie Super 9's!
Let's have one of these in WA! Click this link: Saitama Super Arena - New Perth Stadium?
Have to agree there their 2 wingers Nabuli and Kuridrani are very quick also Duncan Paia'aua .... I am glad Quade is there as he stuffs up so many things not allowing those guys freedom to run.. Yes our back shut them down .. The boys went so well.. I agree the players out due to injury have some work to do to get up to match play as the replacements are firing up..
Wayne Smith is climbing on board the Force bus-- see article in the Australian-- very complimentary about the team and
fan support
A link please
Or post the text so those of us who don't subscribe can read it
C'mon the
Super Rugby: Western Force proved hungrier than faltering Reds
The Australian12:00AM March 4, 2017
Wayne Smith
SENIOR SPORT WRITERBRISBANE
It may be that the Western Force are a far more formidable outfit than everyone had given them credit for. And it may also be that the Queensland Reds have been dramatically overrated.
Their clash at NIB Stadium on Thursday night was fraught with handling issues (how is that jersey manufacturers are able to come up with ultra-slick, form-hugging outfits that enhance the figure but do absolutely nothing for ball retention?), but the intensity and passion of the Force outfit somehow overcame that obstacle, and many others besides.
The odds were stacked against them as virtually never before.
Research shows that teams that have six-day turnarounds between Super Rugby matches win only 25 per cent of the second games. Teams that have only a five-day turnaround … well, who knows what that figure might be, because it had never been done *before.
The Force could have whinged. Instead, they started preparing for the Reds match even before they’d taken off their boots from the Waratahs defeat last Saturday. Even when their flight was held two hours on the tarmac in Sydney while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was departing Australia, the Force remained positive and upbeat.
To say that the result of the match meant something to the Force almost sounds trite. Had they lost it, their next chance of *rewarding their fans with a home victory would have been on April 9 against the Southern Kings.
By that stage, the counter between home wins in Perth for the Force would have ticked over to 701 days. Yet still, 7000 fans turned out to watch them on Thursday. That’s when words like “fan” *becomes obsolete. These are *fanatical, caring supporters who’ve been put through hell by *SANZAAR and the ARU and everyone else.
It came as no surprise when the Force started so strongly. Given the compressed nature of their build-up, they probably figured they needed to hit the Reds with everything early before their legs and lungs gave out.
So the try Chance Peni scored after about 90 seconds did not come entirely as a shock. But when halfback Michael Ruru hit a ruck in the 80th minute and drove the Reds backwards, allowing the Force to pinch a vital turnover to secure their 26-19 victory ... now that surprised.
The try had come from a set-piece play with Jono Lance on the loop and then slipping the ball to Peni, who accelerated through the Reds defence for his first try in Super Rugby. That, too, was eye-opening. George Smith isn’t as young as he used to be but he was in good position to make the covering tackle yet Peni was gone before the veteran even realised.
It didn’t take long to realise the Force were targeting the Reds line*out. And they made sure the referee was as well.
Federico Anselmi of Argentina had little tolerance for the Reds’ new practice of waiting for the opposition lineout to form before rushing in and there is little doubt that by pressuring them on numbers, he took them out of their comfort zone. The Force then did the rest.
Force coach Dave Wessels could have taken the credit for the damage his side inflicted there but quickly shifted praise to forwards coach Joe Barakat and the man who had to implement the strategy on the field, Adam Coleman.
Within the space of half a dozen lineouts, the Reds’ set piece had been reduced to cluelessness.
And let’s not forget that Queensland had the World Cup final unit working out there — hooker Steve Moore and locks Rob Simmons and Kane Douglas. Yet the Force harried them all over the field.
It was not quite the same in the scrums, where the Reds established early dominance. But the more the match went on, the stronger the Force became, primarily because they had deployed their matchwinning weapon, the all-Wallabies reserve front-row unit of Pek Cowan, Tatafu Polota-Nau and Tetra Faulkner. By comparison, the Reds’ reserve props Sef Fa’agase and Taniela Tupou looked and played like boys.
This was the first time the Perth side had won their opening home game of the season, and it was just their 51st win in 162 games since they started out in 2006. And given that SANZAAR will meet in London next week to consider its options, perhaps one other stat is also worth mentioning: nine of the 23-man squad learnt their rugby growing up in Perth.
Is that not what expansion is all about? Is not a national footprint made up of more than toes from Queensland and heels from NSW …. if I may be so indelicate.
Meanwhile, what of the Reds?
They’ve paid a fortune to assemble all this talent but the suspicion is starting to form that along with all this experience has come some very tired legs.
If the conditions in Perth favoured anyone, it should have been the Queenslanders, who have trained all through the off-season in hot and humid conditions. Yet they were worn down by the *humidity and looked decidedly frumpier than the Perth players.
Perhaps the Reds had celebrated their get out of jail victory over the Sharks with a little too much gusto. Perhaps the Perth players simply wanted to win more.
Yet since the start of 2014, the Reds have played 23 local derbies for just five wins. It’s an appalling tally, doubly so in a conference system where the only thing that matters is beating your neighbours to secure a home final.
There’s still time for Queensland to come good and redeem themselves in the eyes of their long-suffering supporters, but it gets no easier from here.
Next week they’re at home to the Crusaders. If this was to be a turnaround season for the Reds, then the turnaround should have begun in Perth. It didn’t.
Great read. Can someone in Twitterland link it to as many SANZAR related feeds as they can
Wasn't it fantastic to get a win at home.
The Sea of Blue was very vocal in the last 10 minutes.
Loved it but still waiting for my voice to return.
Some food for thought for those who think Matt Hodgson will struggle to get back into the game when he returns from his hamstring injury.
Don't read too much into this as need to be careful with small data sets, but nevertheless they still provide useful comparisons.
Koteka, Hardwick & Stander the average of the games against the Tahs and Reds.
Smith and Hooper from their game against the Force.
Hodgson from all SR games in 2016.
Hodgson has always been busy teaching Koteka and Hardwick everything he knows.
I would think that he will always do so.
But seriously, if Hodgson is fit then he should be played so we can get as many wins early in the season as possible. But he no longer has to play for 80 minutes as we have such good options off the bench.
Why settle for 10 fewer rucks, fewer tackles and miss out on his on-field co-ordination of the defensive effort?
Out trainee skippers would benefit from his on-field support.
The transition for his young and worthy replacements should be progressive - as they hopefully stay fit and get more game time.
Koteka appeared to leave the ground with a shoulder problem late in the game against the Reds.
I hope he's fit for Canberra.
My observations from the Reds game was that George Smith was avoiding direct head-to-heads with our Back Row.
He appeared to be avoiding heavy/hard contact
I don't think he's playing the same game that we're used to seeing but is still very handy as the Reds were lacking some firepower in the rucks.
The Reds stood off 42% of Defence Rucks; the Force only 21%.
Have been away on business but will post the normal Ruck Stats from the Tahs and Reds game over the weekend.
Expecting to get busy with some work so will only be posting WF games at TWF for the foreseeable future and giving G&GR a miss.
can you link it? I like to follow the links so they keep writing rugby articles.
Interesting to read the sat on defensive ruck involvement that was the first thing I noticed in the individual breakdown. The young guys hit as many or more rucksack in defense as hodgo, but fewer attack rucks.
I don't think anybody is suggesting they're better players than hodgo, but it's really hard to replace a player who is doing his job well.
That can usually be tempered by the understanding that the returning player is miles better, but I think the gap is getting close enough for that to be questioned.
With Kano and Dickie being the longer term options, we also need to manage their aspirations so we don't lose them at contracting time.
For koteka I'd reckon a 40 minute split would be great, possibly with alternating starts. Can you imagine the damage that both of those boys could do knowing they're only getting 40 minutes and won't gas out.
For Benny, being captain, the story's probably a little different, but Ben plays 6 very well and I think hardback probably would as well.
C'mon the
When I checked last night it was locked to digital subscribers
C'mon the
Here it is. Sometimes you get the subscribers only speil with their articles but for some reason I'm not with this well written piece.
I think that's the first time an ES journo has published that stat about how many home grown Forcemen are in the match day side now. I don't know how to link stuff like that in the Twitter Thingy but it would be good to forward it to Georgina Robertson, Pandarum and a few other agenda pushing wankers. I already sent this one to Graeme Hughes at 2sm with cc to Papworth, Tunks and Gav Robbertson. Unfortunately I got the "Perth Born" wrong for Hardwick - should have been next to Kano Koteka. But they'll get the drift.
4:01 PM (15 hours ago)
to Graeme
Well Super Rugby has started again and the Force are going OK. So I thought I'd e mail you blokes early on so Pappy can't use the program to spread Fake News and Alternate Facts about where their players come from, and maybe get Tunksy to stop repeating some of it.
For the first time, against the Tahs and again this week more than half the starting team came through WA Club Rugby to The Force. Here's their names and Rugby Clubs.
Harry Scoble: Perth born, Wanneroo
Luke Burton: Perth born, Associates
Richard Hardwick, Perth born, UWA
Kane Koteka , Wests-Subiaco
Dane & Ross
Haylett-Petty: Cottesloe
Ryan Louwrens, Cottesloe
Chance Peni, Rockingham
Curtis Rona, Wanneroo.
Anaru Rangi, Nedlands
Michael Ruru, Nedlands
Jermaine Ainsley Nedlands.
The IRB Spends multiple millions of dollars in Development funds in non-traditional Rugby countries. Hard to believe there are backward looking people who would close down a franchise that has built up from the ground with hardly any assistance and just when it's all coming to fruition.
"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David
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