Western Force 2012

[thierry dusautoir]

If i had to choose between choose between cummins and mafi at 12 i would choose mafi just out of sheer skill and as said cumming doesnt distribute.
However i raise the question woulf perhaps people liek to see this backline:
9.Sheehan
10.seymour/harvey
11.mafi
12,harvey/seymour
13.cummins
14.nalaga
15,shepherd
Harvey could make a fine 12 strong can distribute and we have seen doesnt mind a bit of a run. I personally love experiments

 

[GaffaCHinO]

If i had to choose between choose between cummins and mafi at 12 i would choose mafi just out of sheer skill and as said cumming doesnt distribute.
However i raise the question woulf perhaps people liek to see this backline:
9.Sheehan
10.seymour/harvey
11.mafi
12,harvey/seymour
13.cummins
14.nalaga
15,shepherd
Harvey could make a fine 12 strong can distribute and we have seen doesnt mind a bit of a run. I personally love experiments

Unfortunately RG doesn’t...

 

[Moono75]

I'd like to see Harvey get a run at 10 just to see if he can cut it at Super level at the position. Could switch him out if things weren't going well and revert to Seymour and Harvey back to 15. Shep can have a run on the wing as a sub.

 

[Moono75]

Force side posted in the Force v Tahs thread. Rory Sidey on the wing. Nalaga misses again.

 

[thierry dusautoir]

RG seems to have really just given up with this force team winning and just wants to keep his for and against down.

I would rather force roll the dice a few times and be pumped then just do nothing but put a team on the park week in week out and hope for the best. Realistically there is nothign wrong with th eteam named i am sur eit will be solid and have good defence. But attacking options wide it lacks

 

[Moono75]

Mafi is the only recognised threat and he is getting better and better. Sidey very much in uncharted terrioty. Who knows he may surprise, he has reasonable size, will have to see if he is fleet of foot. Still persisting with Stanley at 12. Shame Nalaga is still not right. If he doesn't have a great second half of the season he would have to go down as one of the biggest busts in Super rugby.

 

[Braveheart81]

Shame Elsom is still not right. If he doesn't have a great second half of the season he would have to go down as one of the biggest busts in Super rugby.

I thought including the Waratahs version was worthwhile.

 

[barbarian]

RG seems to have really just given up with this force team winning and just wants to keep his for and against down.

I would rather force roll the dice a few times and be pumped then just do nothing but put a team on the park week in week out and hope for the best. Realistically there is nothign wrong with th eteam named i am sur eit will be solid and have good defence. But attacking options wide it lacks

What a load of bollocks.

How would you do things differently? Spin it wide at every play, running into the a brick-wall of defence?

A team must play to their strengths. For the Force that is the forwards. The results may be ugly but they are what they are.

 

[thierry dusautoir]

Well mate he isnt really playign to his strengths to well either no doubt force have one fo the best packs in the aus conference but i tell you what the run off running and pick drives didnt do much against the chiefs last weak and may I say that the chiefs arent the best pack in the NZ conf. He has a fit pack full of strong runners if he wanted to play to his strength he would be bombing them of the 10 and not just off the nine. I doubt many teams could handle charles,wykes and brown running straight at there ten, pocock and hodgson are also good enough runners and flankers to sustain this style of play as well.
Also one of the forces biggest strengths is the fact they have lighting wingers i wouldnt mind seeing some kicks through for them (ala the reds game). Yes there forwards are the strength but its ignorant to say they are being utilised properly a wide running pocock is a devastating weapon ( Original reds game)

one word variety

 

[ChargerWA]

The Mafi idea to 12 is intriguing. He can break the line and has a decent pass. I always worry about him playing out the back, it feels like he has a tendency to run himself away from support and gets isolated and also his kicking for touch can be woeful. Keep him close to the pack and see if he can find a few holes to feed Cummins at 13.

Worst case scenario he just shovels the ball on or dies in contact, not all that different to what Stanley is doing for us at the moment.

 

[fatprop]

Is Wara injured?

 

[GaffaCHinO]

Is Wara injured?

Slight hamsting strain according to the media release

 

[barbarian]

TD, so you have presented two ideas:

1. Running forwards off the 10
2. Attacking kicks to wingers.

These two things, you say, will add 'variety'.

OK.

1. This idea rests on the fact that the opposition 10 defends at first reciever. This is not the case 90% of the time these days, especially if tight forwards are lining up in the backline. It also presents two major issues- firstly by the time the forward receives the ball they are well behind the advantage line and the defensive line is well ahead of it, and secondly their is a big risk of said runner becoming isolated as the other forwards from the last ruck are a considerable distance away.

2. All well and good, but the margin for error here is razor thin, and it is a tactic that can only be executed a few times in the match. It's also a horses for courses thing. Why would you want to put in kicks (albeit aggressive ones) to Masaga, Nanai-Williams or Robinson? It would be madness.

In short it's not about variety. The Force struggled against the Chiefs because the Chiefs are the 2nd best side in the comp and defended admirably around the ruck. The Force backline just didn't have the punch to make the necessary breaks, and thus they were strangled out of the game.
.

 

[thierry dusautoir]

Your getting too bogged down on the face value of my points. My mistake I thought what is implied wouldn't have to be explained but when i saqy kick through to the wingers I am not talking about rugby league gun hoe chip kicks lets-go-crazy. I am talking calculated kick to the corners for our wingers to pounce. As either a) we pin them down b) we get line out or scrum (force favourite) c) we come up with it. Of course there is margin for error but le
ts be realistic not every kick is going to result in a huge counter attack its super rugby the kicks a calculated to space to give force players time.
Also aiming at there ten is an example i would expect every force forward to win the contact against any backline, rugby is a game of inches. "



by the time the forward receives the ball they are well behind the advantage line and the defensive line is well ahead of it" well by this logic why don't we just say screw our centres lets just pick and drive? Again a super rugby calibre flyhalf would pick the runners on the right line so they wernet runnign into a 140kg rop an a 90kg centre. Also a "big risk of said runner becoming isolated as the other forwards from the last ruck are a considerable distance away

" three points shut this down easily 1. We have pocock and hodgson, 2. If a super rugby level centre can't hold there own in a ruck for 5 seconds why the flankers get there they need to go back to sub-districts 3. Again same logic by that token lets never have a centre crash it up as they would be isolated , it would just be throw it to some random prop having a blow midfield it would be calculated with people backing up.

 

[thierry dusautoir]

Watching the game....RG is obviously reading my posts

 

[Slim 293]

Harvey at flyhalf is no good in attack...

Everytime he's fed the ball from the halfback he stops... turns... passes...

 

[Shiggins]

Ma'fu is usless. He needs to go. He is a usless fatty.

The force were outdone in the forwards and i think the force just had the better of the backs. Definatly better in the centers and quite equal elsewhere. Scary thing to me is if the force were playing like they did last week is would of been a smashing by the Tahs. If our backs were still running around like headless chooks it could of been 40-3 or something like that.

As a force fan the best thing to take away was that our backs looked a lot better. We need to keep Mafi and cummins for a couple years to come and i believe Cummins is contracted to end 2013 but not Mafi. Sheps looked good for his first game back too. I thought stanley looked great compared to his recent games aswell. Harvey went ok. Almost made a clean LB. It wasnt the type of game to see how he was going to go in attack at 10. Even Barnes did fuck all

One more thing, I love the fact that Pockock went for the try instead of 3 points. Its something Sharpie never did and on some occasions i wish he had of.

 

[Lee Grant]

Ma'afu has been a disappointment at the Force. I rated him as a scrummager after he replaced Alexander in the RWC for the Bronze game and on the EOYT; so was surprised when he was pinged a bit last night.

He didn't have much of a problem against Gethin Jenkins of Wales but seemed to have a problem against Fat Cat; ("seemed" because one couldn't always see why he was pinged), and that's not a good thing for the Force or the Wobs. Mind you there are more things that affect a THP's performance than his direct opponent.

Fat Cat can get under bigger men but a couple of his drives were plain bulldozing and with a long bind too.

Based on Ma'afu's performance last night, Palmer and Kepu, appear to be the best Oz THPs at scrum time this season, though I can't assess Slipper too well as the memory fades a bit.
.

 

[kiap]

Ma'afu has been a disappointment at the Force. I rated him as a scrummager after he replaced Alexander in the RWC for the Bronze game and on the EOYT; so was surprised when he was pinged a bit last night.

He didn't have much of a problem against Gethin Jenkins of Wales but seemed to have a problem against Fat Cat; ("seemed" because one couldn't always see why he was pinged), and that's not a good thing for the Force or the Wobs. Mind you there are more things that affect a THP's performance than his direct opponent.

Fat Cat can get under bigger men but a couple of his drives were plain bulldozing with a long bind too.

Based on Ma'afu's performance last night, Palmer and Kepu, appear to be the best Oz THPs at scrum time this season, though I can't assess Slipper too well as the memory fades a bit.

Yes, Fat Cat and the Tahs dominated the scrums the whole game. Only going on watching the game on TV at the time, but also agree that it's hard to pinpoint precisely why. The easy answer is Ma'afu. Maybe he was the weak link for the half he was on. But I did think the Force and Tahs were pretty well matched in the scrum four weeks ago, though.

And even with the Reds and Brumbies match last week I'd expected Palmer to get well on top of Daley. But it didn't pan out. Not even with their handbags...

 

[tranquility]

Slips has been down on form both at scrum-time and around the park... He is however a quality unit and the scrum looks much better when Greg is on the field.