Season Pre-view: Western Force

Form from 2010
Last season was a painful one for Force fans, but not without its silver lining. An injury plague hit and derailed the season before it had even started. First Andre Pretorius, which in hindsight shouldn’t have been a surprise, followed by Mark Bartholomeusz and Cameron Shepherd hours before the opener. The plague hit again with David Pocock and Richard Brown both injured and out for 6 weeks in the first game.

Understandably, the Force lost that opener and their 5 successive games in what was beginning to look like a repeat of their first season in 2006. When a victory finally came against finalists the Stormers, there was rapturous celebration in the stands of NIB Stadium. What a win. It is a good thing the stadium is close to Royal Perth Hospital because I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who almost had a heart attack. More wins came with a comfortable win over the Highlanders and our first ever win over the Crusaders in a champagne second half performance from the Western Force. The season finished off with a win and two losses in Africa and the Force landing in 13th place, although they would have been in 12th if the Reds could defend better.

All things considered it wasn’t a terrible season. There were lost games that could’ve been victories. The Brumbies, Waratahs and Sharks could easily have gone the other way had fortune been on our side. We also managed to beat two of the top four teams.

Comings and Goings
This year has seen yet another large turnover of players. No less than 13 players have left. Many of these are inconsequential such as Sam Harris, Stefano Hunt, Richard Stanford, Haig Sare, Chris O’Young, or Andre Pretorius. Some of the others were pretty handy like Ryan Cross, Nic Henderson and Josh Tatupu. Probably the most disappointing losses are those of Scott Staniforth, Luke Jones, Dane Haylett-Petty and David Hill. Not much needs to be said about Staniforth- he is a Force legend. Luke Jones, however, is a very promising young lock and it is a shame he signed with Melbourne given he’d have got more game time here. As a West Australian, or at least for most of his life, it is disappointing to see Haylett-Petty leave. Completely understandable as he needs game time to sharpen up some of his weaker points, which he will get with Biarritz, but disappointing nonetheless. Finally, David Hill has returned to his Japanese side. While he did not set the competition alight, Hill did exactly what was required of him when he came in at the start of the season.

Force recruitment has followed on in the flavour of journeymen and young talents. Former JWC talents halfback Justin Turner, prop Paul Alo-Emile, lock Phoenix Battye and hooker Nathan Charles join the Force’s senior squad for 2011. On the journeymen front, inside back Gene Fairbanks, centre Rory Sidey, and scrumhalf and 7s star James Stannard have come on board. A few choice players have also been recruited from the Shute Shield in Jono Jenkins, Tevita Metuisela and Pat Dellit. Finally, the Force have continued on in their raiding of the Hurricanes in signing both Willie Ripia and David Smith.

Players to watch out for...
Tom Hockings has everything it takes to be a good lock. Height, strength and red hair. Unfortunately, Tom hasn’t quite lived up to his potential so far in his career. Perhaps his hair needs to be a few shades lighter. Tomato-style. Who knows? With Nathan Sharpe unlikely to continue on with the Force next season, Tom will need to show that the Force’s line-out is safe in his giant hands. He has had a fair few seasons now and it is time for him to have a breakthrough season. He is struggling with injuries a bit at the moment and hasn’t taken the field in any of the Force trials; however he should back up to speed in a few weeks and hopefully will finish the season strongly.

One thing the Wallabies were lacking in the Tri-Nations and Spring tour was a bit of power in the backline. With Adam Ashley-Cooper the only tough nut, we were pretty vulnerable to opposition teams slowing us down or running big forwards like Juan Smith or Nick Easter at our backs. A perfect candidate for the power winger is none other than our own Nick Cummins. He is a good mix of speed and strength and is reliable under the high ball. Robbie Deans was keenly interested at using Cummins with the Wallabies back in 2009 after an excellent season with the Force; however he was injured in training and didn’t make the Spring tour that year. That injury kept him out of the initial rounds of the 2010 Super 14 and probably contributed to his indifferent form. He has shown that he is fit and firing in the trial games that he’s played and should be an exciting part of the Force’s backline.

The Strengths
This year sees the Force’s forward pack the most stable it has been in years. Sharpie, Hodgson, Pocock, Brown and Pek Cowan have been here since day one but players like Nathan Charles, Tim Fairbrother, Ben McCalman, Matt Dunning and Ben Whittaker are onto their second (or third in Whittaker’s case) with the Force and should play better for this stability. This is particularly valuable to the front row where hooker dramas in the failed Pek experiment and Ryan Tyrrell’s neck injury probably had a disrupting effect on the scrum.

The forward pack definitely looks the strongest it has been since the Force was created. We boast an international backrow along with Nathan Sharpe who showed throughout 2010 that he is head and shoulders above Australia’s other locks. Our strengths there will be in a well organized line-out and more than a fair bit of breakdown turnover ball. Our scrum, which in previous seasons has been something of an Achilles heel, should also be the strongest it has been.

Another potential strength is the energy in the Force camp. A new coaching structure has apparently been a shot in the arm to the team. Discontent between John Mitchell and some of the other players and staff has been well documented and was no doubt a negative influence. Richard Graham is definitely more of a ‘people person’ than Mitchell and has brought with him a lot of enthusiasm.

The Weaknesses
To be honest, there are quite a lot of weaknesses, or at least potential weaknesses, for the Force in 2011. The main one is depth. In a longer competition we will rely more heavily on the full squad, and although 2010 was beneficial in getting these players more experience, we will still be rubbing our prayer beads and chanting to our relevant deity (In my case it is Yoda, God of the Force) in the hope that players like Nathan Sharpe, Willie Ripia and James O’Connor stay injury free.

Taking a quick look at our pack, there is another weakness in homogeneity; too many of our players are built in the same mould. We have a lot of athletes with high-work rates and plenty of mobility, but who are far less adept at playing the tight, bash and smash type of game used by teams like the Bulls or the Waratahs. We lack a wrecking ball style 6 or 8 and we don’t really any an ‘enforcer’ lock in the style of Bakkies Botha (not that we want him) or Brad Thorn. No doubt our guys could run the opposition of their feet if we can get the ball some air, but we might struggle if we get pulled into a slug-fest.

I mentioned in the strengths that our new coaching group has brought quite a lot of energy, but have they brought much experience and expertise? Richard Graham has had a year’s experience to prepare for the job but, for factors out of his control, 2010 wasn’t a ringing endorsement for him. I don’t know a lot about defence coach Phil Blake as a league player but I have heard defence wasn’t exactly one of his strong suits. Likewise forwards coach Nick Stiles wasn’t exactly a great scrummager either. Now to be fair to these gentlemen sometimes the best coaches weren’t that great as players and maybe each of them will turn out to be a fantastic coach but it is also possible that they could be duds.

Prediction for 2011
The good news is that the Force can’t do worse than last year. The bad news is that, with quite a few new players and a lack of depth at lock and amongst the inside backs, we don’t quite have what it takes to make the finals. Look forward to a solid season that will hopefully cement our position to make a serious crack at the finals in 2012. I’m going to say 9th overall and 3rd in the Australian conference.

James’ Force XV

1. Pek Cowan
2. Ben Whittaker
3. Tim Fairbrother
4. Tom Hockings
5. Nathan Sharpe
6. Matt Hodgson
7. David Pocock
8. Ben McCalman
9. James Stannard
10. Willie Ripia
11. Nick Cummins
12. James O’Connor
13. Mitch Inman
14. David Smith
15. Cameron Shepherd

Thoughts? Comments? How do you think the Force will go?

I think 9ths about right James.....

The next few years are going to be great. We've got a long line of top academy props- Cruze Ah-Nau, Oli Hoskins and Gary Neucan'tspelltherest. Plus a handful of other talents like Kyle Godwin. I am pretty keen to see how Zac Holmes does in the 7s too. The problem the Force has always had is that there was never really a strong academy side like Queensland and NSW have but that's changing.

I'm not so sure about ninth, when you think who're we better than, the Highlanders, Lions, Cheetahs and rebels are a given, that puts four of the fifteen below us, pretty much guaranteed, making is 11th, when you consider who we'd be pretty confident of being better than, you'd probably include the Brumbies, the Stormers, the Chiefs and the 'Canes. If we knock a couple of them off we're looking at 9th, but if we knock all of them off we're up to about 7th and knocking on the door of a finals berth. It'd only take a bad run of injuries for one of the others, or possibly some lucky results and we could play finals.

I guess I'm saying 9th is a conservative pick, and about where most would place us, but I'm really hopeful we can get 6th this year.

James has alluded to the weakness in the side, which is in the tight 5. As young and enthusiastic as they might be, with the exception of Sharpie and Fairbrother, experience and nous are lacking. And we need the forwards to fire to allow our backs, who have a lot of talent, to fire. Even in the backs we are probably not even in the top 2 backlines of our conference, or in the top 5 of the comp. So as hopeful as I am, with all the concerns mentioned, especially the issue of depth, I think we will notch up a few great wins, but will just miss out on the finals.

The continuing fitness of people like Sharpie, Fairbrother, Rabbit, Riparian and Smith would be exactly the sort of luck I was talking about......injuries or a drop in form to some key Reds, Sharks and Stormers wouldn't hurt either