Western Force: The good, the bad and the ugly

[Kept One]

An article on The Roar that makes interesting reading:

"It has been a shaky start to the Western Force’s 2015 campaign. With this in mind, I present to you the good, the bad and the ugly from the Force’s first five games of the season.

The good
The Force are maintaining possession of the ball. They lead the league in average carries per game (121), and also sit first in time in possession (16 minutes 32 seconds).
These fantastic ball-retention statistics are led by flyhalf Zac Holmes, who is in the early stages of one of the biggest breakthrough seasons in the club’s history.
He leads the team in metres run (217) off just 32 carries of the ball, and has beaten 13 defenders. Whenever he has the ball in-hand he opens up new avenues for his team to create plays and gain metres over the advantage line. He also displays quick feet and pure power, having beaten 13 defenders this season.
Ben McCalman is also having a strong season, typical of the six-year veteran and Wallaby World Cup representative. He leads the team in ball carries at a massive 63 and shows off a well-rounded game with 48 tackles (also first in the team). He sits second behind Holmes in metres run, with 148, and is one of only two forwards (along with Steve Mafi) ranked in the top ten in this statistic for the team.

The bad
Despite the way the Force are maintaining possession of the ball and giving themselves the time to create attacking opportunities, they are often slow to convert in attack.
They average the fewest clean breaks per game this season, making just 4.2 per game. Their work at the breakdown statistically shows they are one of the best teams in this area of the game. They sit first in the league in rucks won per game, at 92.4, and have a ruck success rate of 95 per cent, putting them second in the league to the Bulls.
However, statistics can be misguiding. The Force forwards are often slow to the breakdown, giving the opposing defence the chance to set and have quite a considerable amount of time to wait until the ball is out of the ruck. This may also be a contributing factor to why they lead the league in ball possession.

The ugly
The Force are lacking grunt in their defensive play, and also need to have a think about their set piece.
The side currently has the worst tackling success rate this season, making only 83 per cent of their tackles thus far. They also lead the league in tries against with 15.
Eight backline players make the top ten in missed tackles, and it is clear when watching them play that is the area they are mainly being beaten in. The backline need to match their decent offensive numbers with some strong defence to reach the next level.
The next area of concern is their scrum success rate. They succeed in 69.23 per cent of their scrums, which is 10 per cent below the 14th ranked team. The top teams are converting their scrums over 90 per cent of the time, and league average teams are converting their scrums around the mid-to-low 80 per cent range.
Saying this, their scrum has come a long way since week one against the Waratahs and looks like it will continue to improve.

Moving forward
This weekend the Force play the Bulls, who have been playing well, but have not been outstanding. For the Force to keep their finals hopes alive, this match is almost a must-win. Losing 5 games in a row in a 16-game season can really put a team on the back foot, and a strong road-win will help them recover."

http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/03/19...good-bad-ugly/

[GIGS20]

That sounds pretty positive for a piece from the Roar.

I would expect more flameage from here!

It's very interesting to hear the comments on Zack, when you look at the game with a one-eyed ocean blue mentality it's easy to miss stuff like that, but some of his stats are league leading. I guess that puts the blowtorch even hotter onto our centres, if Zack is making the kind of ground he's credited with, the breakdown has to be somewhere. I don't recall it mentioning him being exempt from the defensive woes, so let's not blow too much smoke.

I think the scrum is being beaten by themselves most of the time, They pack too low to achieve any real drive, whilst they rarely give up ground, it's easy for a team to collapse a couple, get the Force pinged for it and stop our guys from focusing forward, they start pushing upward to combat the collapse, after that we just get driven off the ball through indecisiveness.

It's time for our guys to simply man up and play good rugby....I don't want to have matches turn on the quality of the ref anymore, I want us to be good enough that the couple of bad calls we get every week make no difference whatsoever.

But I won't be betting the house on it.

[boof1050]

As for reffing decisions going our way we're knackered this weekend we've got that imbecile from the reds game. May as well declare uncontested scrums from now. Nick Briant is a shocking referee. How do we attract these jokers.

[GIGS20]

Once again, I don't want to blame the ref any more, we need to be good enough that he can't affect us.

[Alison]

In reply to Boof: because we have no political clout and are in the 'also rans' part of the table every year??!

[choice]

If you look real closely at zacks stats you will note that all these good things come when the WF put together multiple phases and are getting well past the gain line. Just imagine how good his stats could be if the forward pack was more consistent (me being kind) .
I bet they don't read nearly as good from set piece or 1st phase ball.

[hertryk]

As for reffing decisions going our way we're knackered this weekend we've got that imbecile from the reds game. May as well declare uncontested scrums from now. Nick Briant is a shocking referee. How do we attract these jokers.

I thought he was stood down for the reason of the season for the "boopers" he made during our game against the Reds???

[The InnFORCEr]

He was stood down for a week only.

[GIGS20]

And then thrown into a match with exactly the scrum that he vilified and earned a week off for.

There's only two ways this will go, and neither will see a fair scrum battle, he'll have learned not to call the scrums that way and wil overcompensate, slagging the Bulls at every turn, or he'll be indignant that his performance was so harshly critiqued and continue with the same drivel that got him dropped in the first place. Poor decision by SANZAR to put him in that situation.

As I've posted a couple of times this week, we need to rise above this bagging on the ref and be good enough that it doesn't matter who we get.

[valzc]

And then thrown into a match with exactly the scrum that he vilified and earned a week off for.

There's only two ways this will go, and neither will see a fair scrum battle, he'll have learned not to call the scrums that way and wil overcompensate, slagging the Bulls at every turn, or he'll be indignant that his performance was so harshly critiqued and continue with the same drivel that got him dropped in the first place. Poor decision by SANZAR to put him in that situation.

As I've posted a couple of times this week, we need to rise above this bagging on the ref and be good enough that it doesn't matter who we get.

This guy is gonna be out for revenge and he'll find some reason whatever to bag the Force. Sam needs to learn being more assertive and not let the ref get away with it. We've copped this same shit from refs in SA before so managing the team and the ref is really an issue.