I'm actually a bit more positive on the Force's chances of a bonus point win. I think our attack looked a lot better last week and it was essentially the backline's first outing together. We were generally making good metres whenever we kept the ball in hand, which was a big change from the rest of the season. I think we also got points the majority of the time we had the ball within 30-40 metres of the opposition try line.
The main things that stopped us from scoring more tries were:
- Almost always taking the 3 instead of kicking to the corner or an attacking scrum
- Absolutely woeful kicking, especially kicking for touch where we'd keep only chewing off 10-15m and therefore kept losing the territory battle, so couldn't get ourselves in attacking areas despite the excellent efforts in defense.
- Losing a few line-outs from some poor throwing
Surely the first will be addressed as we must know we need to turn down the 3 in this game and go for a bonus point win to give us a realistic chance of making the finals.
The other 2 should also be relatively easy to fix with some concerted efforts at training this week (although I've been hoping for number 2 to be fixed all season really).
If we can get an early try or two (and I understand that's a very big if), then the young Tahs could very well drop their heads and get the result we need. The Tahs are a lot more dangerous than the Rebels in attack however and look much better with Gordon back, so we'll need to put in another strong defensive effort to stop them scoring tries.
