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Natives getting restless after another home loss
Just four home wins in nearly three years and the Western Force natives are getting restless.
Following Friday’s 32-16 defeat at the hands of the Stormers - described by skipper Nathan Sharpe as the club’s worst performance in two years - chunks of the 24,000 fans at Subiaco Oval disappeared before the final whistle.
And coach John Mitchell admitted he would have liked to have gone with them.
After successive wins in New Zealand placed them in the Super 14 top four, a listless Force again stumbled at home, conceding four tries and plenty of the momentum built up on the arduous first leg of the season.
Mitchell and Sharpe, who celebrated his 100th Super rugby appearance in the worst way, were frank in their assessment.
“It was not acceptable, we ignored the hard places ... and they did everything to us that we wanted to do to them, and they were good at it,” Mitchell said.
“We did not control our attitude, did not give them enough respect and were not brave or brutal enough.
“There is no place for you in professional football if you can’t learn quickly, and there is no place for you in professional rugby if you don’t have the maturity to control your attitude for the whole of the round robin.”
Stormers winger Tonderai Chavhanga’s 48-second try - one of the quickest in Super rugby history - set the tone, with Drew Mitchell’s reply cancelled out by Chavhanga’s second, and Jean De Villiers and JD Moller securing a bonus point in the second half.
Sharpe admitted the return to Perth had brought a lethargy which was brutally exposed.
“There was too much of a relaxed attitude coming home. It was our worst performance by an absolute country mile, I reckon over the last two years,” Sharpe said.
“It is very tough when you are making simple errors, just dropping the ball straight, turnover after turnover you just can’t build any momentum.”
Since their inception in 2006, the Force has now just four wins to show from their 15 appearances at Perth’s home of AFL, with signs fan dissatisfaction with the stadium is also being felt about what they are seeing on the pitch.
One wag pleaded with competition organisers to give the Force 13 away games next season - while another compared the men in blue to the consistently underperforming Fremantle Dockers.
Mitchell said the supporters had a right to be upset, but urged them to persevere.
“I would have left early too ... the thing that disappoints for me the most is that for the fans, for Sharpey (in his 100th) and for Tai (McIsaac, playing his 50th Super game) that is the type of performance we dished up,” Mitchell said.
“That does not sit well with me. But a good fan is like a good team, they stick together during high and lows.”
Mitchell said he hoped and expected Matt Giteau to be fit for next week’s visit of the champion Bulls, after the flyhalf was taken off late in the game after another buffeting.
“He got a bit of a hip spike I think, once he game was gone it was just a matter of getting some of the key guys off,” Mitchell said.
“There is about five guys with knocks, but I think he will be right.”
Natives getting restless after another home loss : thewest.com.au
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Maybe its a sign of some description, though i have no idea what!!!
"Remember lads, rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Giteau." 
Originally Posted by Jehna
