My view.......

[travelling_gerry]

Well....like most others....I was eagerly anticipating tonight and to see out first win at home......

and like most others I too feel....gutted....

without getting into the nitty gritty of who played well and who played bad....I would prefer to give an overall opinion and some suggestions...

1) The players are SOOOOO keen to give a win to their loyal fans....and I think this is playing on their minds.

I dont think it would have been a happy dressing room after the game with Mitch telling them what for....

But.....I think they need to put this one behind them...get onto the plane to South Africa and notch up a couple of wins over there without the pressure of 30,000 fans. Then come home and see how it goes.

2) At the conclusion of the match I think the players wanted to just crawl into a hole and die......so BIG kudos to Gits, Henjak who stayed behind and walked to the crowd and spoke.....Sharpie and Rudi also stayed behind for media stuff and they too waved......

So a message to the players....hey....we know you are hurting.....so are we....but we still want to stay behind and clap you off..so maybe next time....win or lose.....come to the fence and have a chat.....the fans still love you...

maybe just a player go to one bay and say hello before they all walk off together....

3) The crowd.......it seems with the reduced memberships the crowd was more spread out tonight...maybe thats a good thing because I was much more comfortable and didnt feel like a sardine......

Booing at the kick....I still hate it...but obviously 20,000 odd seemed to want to boo while the opposition was kicking....it didnt do much..he still kicked them anyway....

Mexican wave......leave it to the mexicans....concentrate on the game..

4) The glow sticks just didnt seem to be as bright as when we were at MES...although they did stand out in the crowd in the bar tent after the game.....maybe we ditch the idea or just make it for twf members as an identifer in dark places....

Thats it....my 22c (incl GST)

PS>.....I pity any of the spectators on the city end of the ground........DAYLIGHT SAVINGS SUCKS doesnt it???

[Egan]

It wasn't that bad Gerry at the city end.

I am not all that worried, because I am just enjoying Rugby. Although the second half showed not much improvement from last year.

I thought Brown did a decent job.

[travelling_gerry]

I'm waiting till Coach puts up the best player award till I vote......and watch the game agin a couple of times on DVD

[Lonzy]

i think the game was great! we didnt win but it was just a margin of 1!!! it was close and a score of 7-8 means we were good with our defense but not as good with our attacking ... stuff we can work on! um drunk but hey! I love the force ... I hope they love me ... but yeah they are great good start to the season, not the best but it was good! I love the force! COME ON!!! ... I think i got some good photos too, I will post them asap!

[The EnForcer]

Gutted is the understatement of the year so far. We had the opportunity to win but just didn't take it.

I'm pleased Henjack had a good game.

I agree with Gerry that the pressure to win a home game for us probably had some influence but it just ain't a good excuse.

As for not taking the penalty, well we have discussed it before and the consensus was you take the damn penalty. You are aloud to think about running it or kicking to touch but then you take the damn penalty! I'm afraid I can't forgive poor decision making as it's their job.

It also struck me that they appeared to have a backline plan and didn't use it. Invariably all that happened was running at an angle into the defensive line resulting in poor passing or giving up a penalty. Maybe our star studded backline need to remember it's a team game and there is no glory without victory.

It was not all bad but I had myself so convinced we were going to win I just feel extremely dissapointed. I'm sure in a few games time we will all have forgotten about this when we have notched up a few wins.

Finally, we have no excuses now, we have excellant players, a great coaching team, a brilliant supporters group, so come on boys pull the digit out and get after it.

Go The Force

[Signals]

I had never experienced booing the opposition while taking a kick of any kind in any arena before going to watch the eagles many years ago. I thought then that it was a discrace and isolated to the eagles, i feel embarrassed to be part of a crowd that behaves that way and wish they would put in as much effort to cheering our team on. As far as clapping the team off is concerned, hats off to henjak of course he was gutted as we were after the game but he came around the ground and reciprocated our applause. he has gone up a few notches in my book and his team mates should take note

[luke_the_pom]

As for not taking the penalty, well we have discussed it before and the consensus was you take the damn penalty. You are aloud to think about running it or kicking to touch but then you take the damn penalty! I'm afraid I can't forgive poor decision making as it's their job.

must take the penalty!!!!!

[LarryNJ]

Well as most of you know I'm a rugby novice and have very little clue to what's going on. But for what it's worth, I'll give you my thoughts from the game. I slept in and I missed most of the first half. In the second half it seem to me that the team was of out of sync. They didn't seem to know what the other guy was doing. Every time that they looked like they were going to score they made (what seemed to me) some sort of mistake. I very well could be wrong but it looked like they really didn't want the win that bad or they simply weren't prepared. I tend to blame efforts like that on the coaching staff.

If you have a chance to get 3 points you take the points!

[Egan]

must take the penalty!!!!!

That's a laugh coming from you...

But i thought after the 2nd, 3rd time and noting the ability of the Highlanders Scrum, that it would have been better to get the three points.

But then you have the aspect that the Highlanders would have come at the Force more, if they went behind.

[luke_the_pom]

That's a laugh coming from you...

how come thats a laugh?

im english - known for the 10man penalty kicking type rugby

[Egan]

Last year you wanted them to go for a try, when they where going for the sticks.

Or are you just never satisfied

[luke_the_pom]

Or are you just never satisfied

hahaha yeah thats probably it mate!!!

although i didnt have much faith in their kicking last year

[The Lone Hydrangea]

Agree with you Gerry. Lets hope this is our one shocker for the year.
We were poor and Otago's defence was excellent.I watched the replay on Fox at 00.30 and it wasn't any better.Apart from two periods 15 mins in each half when we looked solid, the rest was error strewn and diabolical.That had no shape what so ever.It looked like a game of junior rugby Majority of the players had a shocker along with the coaching staff.

Anyway im not dwelling on it.The only way is up and we are half a chance to do the Stormers next week.Better to see the glass half full than half empty.
Highlight of the night was Henjaks performance

Also to round things off, 96th in the tipping(0 3) and dropped v$17000 at the Tab.

[Thequeerone]

Thanks Gerry - you kinda summed up my feelings !

[herkit]

When we didn't have the few extra backs in the line their attacking formation was way too flat. As a consquence they were marked as soon as they got the ball. No one was really taking the ball at pace, which is a shame when we have the speedsters we do. Quite often Gitteau had to take the ball with a couple of backwards steps. Having said that Henjak to his credit really stepped up to the mark, although I would have liked to see O'young & Junior on with 20- 30 mins to go.