Super Rugby Au Rnd 3 Waratahs vs Force 5th March, Sydney

[formerflanker]

Well done Force. Good comeback after a poor start and solid play to hold on with 14 men.
Happy with most of the Tah's effort and execution, but we did have a long time against a 14 man team and couldn't capitalise.
Impressed with Berry's consistent work in trying to keep interruptions to a minimum, especially sending off the water boys.
Laughed at post match comment - "he threw a punch because his new baby is giving him sleepless nights".

 

[hifflepiff]

Impressed with Harrison. On multiple occasions he created scoring opportunities which other players dropped dead. Reminded me a bit of Mahomes in this years Super Bowl.

I do wish he and a few other young Tahs players were in a better team so that we could see what they can do.

 

[PhilClinton]

Harrison looked good especially at the death, the Tahs built some good phases with him in control.I think he will learn more about his best play style this year with the Tahs than being on another team. Dare I say it, he was Larkham like tonight with ball in hand and at times he looked most dangerous running the ball but always had the options to pass. I like him.

 

[Dan54]

Quite enjoyed the game from a neutrl point of view. As someone who lived in Qld for 24 years I kind of generally want Tahs to lose, but to be honest, I feel for these kids a bit, I feel the players have been dropped in it with no real experience etc. Like the look of that kid at 7 for Tahs, watched him closely a couple of times and geez he not out of game long, off the ground after tackles etc real quick, obviously got a very good motor on him. Have to say from over here in NZ I find it hard to not get the impression that the Froce are a good NRC team, that have just bought in a few players past their prime from around the world? I understand why etc, just I not sure they going to really compete against better team for a few years until they build up a mix of younger new players. To be honest Kearney was a good 15 a few years back (but still ok) Jeremy Thrush had finished in NZ collected his pension up north, and stll gets a gig. Richard Kahui very similar. I think if they recruit well in a few years I still think they can come right.

 

[TSR]

Harrison looked good especially at the death, the Tahs built some good phases with him in control.I think he will learn more about his best play style this year with the Tahs than being on another team. Dare I say it, he was Larkham like tonight with ball in hand and at times he looked most dangerous running the ball but always had the options to pass. I like him.

And considering his centre’s were giving him nothing, I thought that made his performance even better.

Great to see all the 10s showing some goal kicking form too. It’s been a long time since we’ve had consistently reliable kickers across all our teams.

 

[TSR]

It’s Super Rugby a place for proven talent, raw talent is for the Shute Sheild. Maybe there is something in the Fox Sports article about the academies putting young players on a pedestal they haven’t earnt and need to earn in Shute Sheild.

I dunno - is he that much different to Daugunu was in his first year.

I don’t completely disagree with the gist of your point. In an ideal world he’d be developing by playing bit roles off the bench and Shute Shield, but in the absence of other options he seems good enough to me to be a squad player who is going to be called upon when there are a few injuries like there are now.

Unfortunately it would be much easier for him if he was playing in a more experienced backline, but he needs to make a good fist of his circumstances.

If the Tahs are going to turn the corner they do need guys like him to consistently perform near the top of their potential and that probably isn’t going to happen this year.

 

[TSR]

Quite enjoyed the game from a neutrl point of view. As someone who lived in Qld for 24 years I kind of generally want Tahs to lose, but to be honest, I feel for these kids a bit, I feel the players have been dropped in it with no real experience etc. Like the look of that kid at 7 for Tahs, watched him closely a couple of times and geez he not out of game long, off the ground after tackles etc real quick, obviously got a very good motor on him. Have to say from over here in NZ I find it hard to not get the impression that the Froce are a good NRC team, that have just bought in a few players past their prime from around the world? I understand why etc, just I not sure they going to really compete against better team for a few years until they build up a mix of younger new players. To be honest Kearney was a good 15 a few years back (but still ok) Jeremy Thrush had finished in NZ collected his pension up north, and stll gets a gig. Richard Kahui very similar. I think if they recruit well in a few years I still think they can come right.

Nice summary Dan.

It seems to me that the Force strategy is to buy some top up talent to give the development pathways the 2-3 seasons it needs to bare fruit. That seems a pretty reasonable plan to me but I’d guess they had a limited number of guys who they were able to hook for one reason or another. I’d expert similiar squad next year, but probably some upgrades in the imported talent. I’d guess the hope is that in 2 yrs they’ll have more emerging talent in the squad plus, hopefully 2-3 marquee signings that come back for a crack at the Wallabies.

While I think results will be mixed in the short term I’m pretty hopeful for the results it’ll yield for the longer term.

Only time will tell though. I’d certainly be great to have another pool of talent to draw on and I don’t see any reason WA can’t become a much more significant contributor to the player pool. The Force do seem very focused on that in the longer term.

 

[hifflepiff]

Only time will tell though. I’d certainly be great to have another pool of talent to draw on and I don’t see any reason WA can’t become a much more significant contributor to the player pool. The Force do seem very focused on that in the longer term.

Looking at the number of quality players Perth has produced in recent years, it seems Force have very good pathways set up out in WA.

Its heartening to see that both WA and Melbourne are starting to get a good production line of talent coming through to the highest level. It can only be a good thing for the Wallabies.

 

[Derpus]

Quite enjoyed the game from a neutrl point of view. As someone who lived in Qld for 24 years I kind of generally want Tahs to lose, but to be honest, I feel for these kids a bit, I feel the players have been dropped in it with no real experience etc. Like the look of that kid at 7 for Tahs, watched him closely a couple of times and geez he not out of game long, off the ground after tackles etc real quick, obviously got a very good motor on him. Have to say from over here in NZ I find it hard to not get the impression that the Froce are a good NRC team, that have just bought in a few players past their prime from around the world? I understand why etc, just I not sure they going to really compete against better team for a few years until they build up a mix of younger new players. To be honest Kearney was a good 15 a few years back (but still ok) Jeremy Thrush had finished in NZ collected his pension up north, and stll gets a gig. Richard Kahui very similar. I think if they recruit well in a few years I still think they can come right.

Cubelli is a gun.

 

[TSR]

Looking at the number of quality players Perth has produced in recent years, it seems Force have very good pathways set up out in WA.

Its heartening to see that both WA and Melbourne are starting to get a good production line of talent coming through to the highest level. It can only be a good thing for the Wallabies.

Agree - but just as importantly it’ll improve the quality of our super teams across the board.

In the short term we need to get to a point where we can field 5 quality sides without reliance on imports (or maybe 1 marquee import). As we go in the ideal would be to grow the number of teams without diluting the quality. I don’t think this is achievable from our current position in less than 5 yrs, but I don’t see why it couldn’t be achieved over a 5 - 10 year period. But that’s all pie in the sky stuff at this stage. Immediate focus needs to be just increasing the quantity & quality of our domestically produced rugby players.

 

[Forcefield]

Almost a quarter of the Force squad is locally developed. There are some guys who fit that box we'd like to bring home (RHP, Hardwick, Tizzano and a handful of others). I'd hope in three years time the squad is half local and three quarters local by 7 years time. I don't think we would ever be more than 75% locally developed (which franchise is?).

This definitely has to be the last season for some of our old bulls. Greg Holmes was walking after 15 minutes of play in admittedly a free flowing game. Kearney is good but losing gas. 5 years ago, Kahui would have finished off that break against the Tahs. Thrush adds something- loved the hands for the Anstee break- but I'm not sure it's enough. I like our Dad's Army, though. Hopefully they are assisting the development of those younger guys. Some of them could make good squad depth (bench options) next year, but you'd be worried if they are still littering the starting team.

 

[TSR]

On a seperate note, I have to say it is a shame to see Ready continue to waste his talent.

Part of me wants to see him banished from the game squad for being a dick - but really I’d much rather someone get through to him that he is really wasting his potential.

Hopefully Sampson gets through to him.

 

[Forcefield]

I'm pretty steamed at Ready, but it did look like an accident. It was too piss weak to be serious. Not good enough either way.

 

[TSR]

I think you’re being kind. It may have been innocuous, but it was still deliberate and dumb.

Anyway - it is what it is, and it would be churlish of me to focus on that incident and not acknowledge how great it was for the Force to get the win. Looking forward to see them look to back it up at home v the Rebels next week.

 

[Pass it to Dunning!]

Probably off-topic but there isn't really an obvious other place to post this. How good was the run from the NSW Sevens' player Yool Yool in the halftime game? The rest of the team were obviously outclassed by the Australia side, but he needs a contract.

 

[ForceFan]

WF Post Game

 

[ForceFan]

Tahs post game

 

[dru]

I think you’re being kind. It may have been innocuous, but it was still deliberate and dumb.

Anyway - it is what it is, and it would be churlish of me to focus on that incident and not acknowledge how great it was for the Force to get the win. Looking forward to see them look to back it up at home v the Rebels next week.

I suspect he thought it was simply a push but the numpty actually has his fist closed. I don't think it was just 1 either. I can't imagine that they will go easy on it at all.

I'd like to see him flourish as well but that really was sheer stupid.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

How good was anstee his seven skills and ability to use space noted but also thought he was amongst it in forwards battle with high work rate - like to see his stats

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Anstee probably MOM but fuck Dempsey had a good game. Welcome back.

Best game seen from Dempsey for a while but