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The Western Force have crumbled in the final 10 minutes- crashing to defeat against the Canterbury Crusaders. Leading 30-28 coming into the final 10 minutes, soft defence again let the Force down as the Crusaders ran in two tries to take an unsurpassable 42-30 lead. The Force attacked strongly in the dying minutes but were unable to cross the chalk for a much deserved bonus point for their efforts. It was definitely a game of four quarters with the Crusaders reigning supreme in the opening and closing stanzas. The Force won the middle stages of the game 27-16, however it is a game of 80 minutes and the Crusaders definitely showed that tonight.
Sloppy tackling in the first 10 minutes allowed two tries to Israel Dagg. Both tries were capitalizations on a combination of poor kicking and poor scrambling defence. Matt Berquist converted just one of the two to give the Crusaders a 0 – 12 lead.
The Force managed to get on the scoreboard 5 minutes later when a no-arms tackle gifted James O’Connor a fairly simple 3 points.
The Force defence continued to be stretched, however it had tightened a bit since those early minutes. Penalties were traded by both side; Berquist with one and O’Connor with two.
The game really came to life in the 25th minute as the Crusaders fumbled the ball while hot on attack. Dave Smith swooped on the ball and got it across to O’Connor who sent it wide for Cameron Shepherd to go over for a super Super Rugby try. Willie Ripia’s conversion was successful to give the Force a slender 16-15 lead.
The Crusaders struck back immediately. Sonny Bill Williams went over from yet another powerful Crusaders attack down their right hand side.
The Force added a penalty in the dying stages of the first half to bring themselves out to 19-22 at the break.
The Crusaders looked to be flagging early in the second half, opting for penalty kicks rather than continuing on with their devastating running. Berquist’s first long range attempt missed the target, however his second was on song and gave the Crusaders a 25-19 lead.
The crowd erupted moments later after the Richie McCaw was penalised at the breakdown while the Force were hot on attack in the 46th minute. The ensuing penalty was good and kept the Force within 3 points.
The Force made the most of their man advantage with James O’Connor and David Smith again combining brilliantly to spark an attack that again saw Cameron Shepherd go over in the corner. The conversion failed to go over from the sideline, however another penalty minutes later so the Force extend their lead to 30-25.
The next 10 minutes of the game were played a lot in neutral territory with neither team able to gain control of the match.
It was the Crusaders who finally broke the deadlock running in a try by Corey Flynn in the 70th and a second by Kahn Fotuali’i in the 74th. The final score was 42-30.
More to follow.
Match Wash-Up
The Good
Once again our goal kicking kept us in the match. James O'Connor had a 100% night with a lot of kicks around the 40m distance. Willie Ripia only missed one of the kicks he took. Definitely one of our strengths when you consider that Cam Shepherd and Brett Sheehan are decent goal kickers.
The big highlight for me was our composure after the initial cage-rattling. We seemed to draw a line after the first 15 minutes and played our way back into the game to the point that we were leading by 5 with just over 10 minutes to go. That's an impressive effort against any team, but even more so against the Crusaders.
Another big plus was the strength of our short to medium range kick-chase. Nick Cummins and Pat Dellit gave the Crusaders outside backs a few headaches with the shorter kicks. This is an aspect of our play that is great to watch.
The Bad
Far and away the worst element of tonight's game was the aimless kicking, particularly early on. You don't kick like that against the Crusaders. It is suicide. Much better to take the ball into contact and put in a contestable kick to get the ball out of your half of the field. We seemed to cotton onto that message by half time but it still cost us big time.
The kicking alone was not the what killed us, but it was coupled with some very, very average one on one defence. Again, this was primarily a problem early on in the game. The Crusaders ran riot down their right hand touch line early on in the game. Most people in the crowd probably thought we were going to be completely overrun by the 10th minute. It was taking 3 or 4 players just to bring down one of the Crusader's outside backs simply because of sloppy tackling. We played right into their hands.
The Ugly
It's already been mentioned a bit so I won't go on too much about it. Vinny's reffing was generally good but you can't help but feel peeved that he didn't ping Flynn or Bill Williams for not releasing the ball after he had done that to Cummins. Consistency is a must in rugby, even if you are consistently wrong. Given that both incidences lead to the try that regained the Crusaders the lead, you could argue that it lost us the game. You'd probably be disrespecting the Crusaders if you did though. Personally, I think the new laws with the tackler release make the not releasing rule a bit too subjective and complex. Great to see Vinny show McCaw the yellow sticker!
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Originally Posted by zimeric
