Chiefs pick up bonus point victory against the Force

[hertryk]

[quote=robyn ;195760]Oh-my-gosh.

Final Score Chiefs 31 Force 13


Do we have to be reminded!

[tragic]

Agreed...it's easy

Thou shalt run the bloody ball
Thou shalt hang onto your tackles
Thou shalt get to the breakdown
Thou shalt score tries

Here endeth the lesson from the Gospel of Stone Cold.

Amen!

[travelling_gerry]

Praise be to the committee.


(Doesn't quite sound right does it?)

[travelling_gerry]

Force hits low with tackles missed

Wayne Smith | March 09, 2009
Article from: The Australian

THE statistics back the perception. The Western Force's feeble defensive effort against the Chiefs on Friday was the worst in the club's history.

Usually the Force's tackle accuracy statistic hovers between 87-95 per cent, but against the Chiefs, it plunged to a record low of 79 per cent as the Waikato team waltzed through missed tackle after missed tackle to score a 31-13 victory, its first of the season.

"We just didn't turn up," said coach John Mitchell yesterday in Queenstown, where the Force is regrouping before heading into a Christchurch showdown on Saturday against a Crusaders side licking its own wounds after notching some unwanted history of its own on the weekend.

The defending champions' 6-0 loss to the Highlanders at Carisbrook was the first time the Crusaders have failed to score a point in 168 Super rugby matches. Actually, they did score a point -- a bonus point -- by finishing within seven of their opponents, while the two NZ teams jointly relieved the Brumbies and Reds of the record they had previously held for the lowest match aggregate, for their 6-3 arm-wrestle in 2007.

How Test number eight Richard Brown's energy and ruthless tackling were missed at Waikato Stadium, so much so that Mitchell is checking on the fitness of the Wallabies backrower to determine whether to recall him to the touring side after he went home to Perth for treatment on the shoulder he damaged in the Force's recent upset win over the Brumbies.

While Mitchell conceded there were technical deficiencies in the way his players went about their tackling against the Chiefs, the primary problem appeared to be that they simply weren't up for a match that, had they won it, could have consolidated them in the top four.

Now they find themselves in sixth place in a curious-looking Super 14 ladder that after only four rounds has divided into haves and have-nots, with the winless Cheetahs on the bottom but with the six teams ranked above them all having scored a solitary victory.

Astonishingly, the Crusaders, the traditional competition powerhouse, are languishing among the underachievers and seemingly the door is open to the Force in Christchurch to claim one of the two scalps to have eluded it so far in Super rugby -- the other being the Waratahs.

"We've drawn with both of them but never beaten them, so that's kind of motivating," Mitchell said.

There should be motivation, too, in the fact that All Blacks captain Richie McCaw limped out of the Carisbrook shocker with a medial ligament strain and is in grave doubt for this match. Even with McCaw, the Crusaders have struggled to impose themselves this season. Without him, they look vulnerable indeed, especially against a Force outfit with two ball-scavengers in its backrow in David Pocock and Matt Hodgson.

That said, Christchurch's AMI Stadium (previously Jade Stadium) is the most difficult ground for visiting teams. In their 14 seasons in the competition, the Crusaders have lost only 14 matches there, with another three games drawn. Take out their early competition losses and that record is even more daunting -- a mere five losses since 2002.

But then Canberra Stadium is the second-hardest ground on which to score an away win, with the Brumbies having lost there only 17 times, with one draw. Yet the Force ignored all that to win there in style just nine days ago. The question is which Force side will run on against the Crusaders: the one that out-enthused the Brumbies or the one that couldn't be bothered against the Chiefs.

It's unlikely to be the same side that succumbed at the Waikato Stadium, with Mitchell warning he was contemplating two, possibly three, changes.

As poor as the Force was in the first half on Friday, conceding three tries, it worked itself back in contention to trail 21-13 early in the second half. "If we could have built some momentum from there, the Chiefs would have got the jitters," Mitchell said.

But then a bewildering decision by Australian referee Matt Goddard to penalise Ryan Cross for doing no more than challenging Chiefs fullback Sosene Anesi in the air allowed Stephen Donald to nudge the home side out to 24-13, settling wobbly Waikato nerves.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html