Flattened Force feel the pain

Flattened Force feel the pain
29/03/2008 7:48:58 AM
Justin Chadwick
Sportal


Western Force coach John Mitchell has put his players on notice following the side's shock 32-16 loss to the Stormers at Subiaco Oval on Friday night.

Mitchell said the error-riddled performance from the Force was 'not acceptable', while captain Nathan Sharpe labelled the performance the franchise's worst 'by a country mile'.

"Very disappointing performance - not acceptable," Mitchell said after the match.

"We ignored the hard places tonight and they fully deserved their victory. They did everything to us that we wanted to do to them and they were good at it."

"We didn't control our attitude and didn't give them enough respect in the hard places as they call it."

"We just weren't brave or brutal tonight in our performance and we fell well short. Our leaders have addressed the players and I also addressed the players and they understand that we are disappointed."

Sharpe admitted there may have been some complacency going into the clash against the Stormers.

"I don't think it's a matter of getting ahead of ourselves but it's probably just a little bit of a relaxed attitude coming home and thinking you win your home games," Sharpe said.

"Certainly it was our worst performance by a country mile over the last two seasons. And to do it on the back of some good performances away from home is very disappointing but, as Mitch said, it's not lost on the player group. The beauty for us is we've got two more home games (coming up) to right ourselves."

Mitchell said he was confident his charges would bounce back against the Bulls next week.

"I would like to think this group will learn from this performance," he said.

"There is no place in professional football for you if you can't learn quickly. And there's no place out there on the pitch if you don't have the maturity to control your attitude for the whole of the round robin."

"I've got total faith in the group and some players are a bit more experienced than others and we found out again tonight that some players have some maturity to go in terms of this competition. The only way you can learn from it is if you experience it and maybe some guys tonight have experienced a huge learning curve."

Sharpe echoed his coach's sentiments.

"I'm confident we are going to play well next week," he said.

"This team is not a team that's going to put two performances like that back to back and you will see a completely different attitude next week. One bad performance doesn't make you bad footballers."

Force flyhalf Matt Giteau copped a knock to his hip in the second half and was replaced by Nick Cummins in the 66th minute, but Mitchell was confident his star playmaker would be right to go against the Bulls.

I dont think any team would put two performances like that back to back, except the waratahs anyway

I noticed that Mitchell didn't go down to the sideline/bench for the last 5 minutes of the game like he has in the past. Fair sign he wasn't happy.
Bet the boys were glad there were presentations to watch before they had to go to the rooms :S

i even deleted the game that was recorded for me when i got home from the game , dont ever want to see that shit again

I gave my ticket away as I had something else on. Seems like it was a good week to stay down. I am back on schedule this week so I am sure the boys' performance will pick up. Maybe.

I mean I know their performance will pick up, but not just my being there will encourage that.

I will go to bed now

the team for this week goes into the match trying to prove to themselves and the fans that they are still capable of winning at home.
and i cant wait to see what they do with this fact in mind. its already shaping up to be an awsome performance by the boys!

a horrible display of rugby.. a very dissapointing start to the weekend - don't ever do that again boys!!!

I need an outlet tho I'm sure most of you have had enough already, anyway here are my two cents..

First, I'm with you on that one Happy, no doubt a game that we'll find hard to beat in terms of mediocrity.

Second, MAULs: where the bloody hell are ya? (I'll discuss this further a little later)


My observations: Us

-lateral running: Lots of lateral running from the boys as has been in quite a few games I've watched, the difference with previous games is that we always seemed to have people coming in from depth, there were no crush -hitters this time round, which meant plenty of static ball resulting in turnovers. We saw the difference when Stanners moved to inside and off one of his crush balls there came a try (the cynical would say that by this time the Stormers 2nd stringers were in).

-no support: as has been mentioned, we appeared lethargic and this was evidenced by plenty of ball carriers ending up isolated contributing to our considerable negative turnovers stats.

-no shift/change in game plan: do we have a plan B?

No need to go into our lineouts, poor kicking, poor passing, poor decision making, poor poor poor.

My observations: Them

The Stormers looked to have carefully watched our videos and gotten it right. We were bad as a unit but to give credit where its due, they played well (defensively atleast).

- Shalk Burger: He was the sparkplug of the defensive aspect of the Stormers. His energy and raw aggression stimulated his team and we simply had no way of shutting him off.

- aggressive tackling: there was quite abit of gang tackling in this game from the Stormers. One tackler for the feet and the other hitting the upperbody. This not only restricted our pop-paases in the tackle but also allowed them to have two defenders already in the ruck fighting for the ball and resulted in heaps of freekicks awarded against us for holding the ball. It is from this pressure that we started having plenty of wayward passes with no one confident to go down with the ball.

- communication: There was loads of communication in the rucks. Soon as they realised they were no chance, the defenders quickly fanned out leaving only one or two at most to slow the ball down (I could confirm this by watching the game, but there is no way I'll go through that again). This is quite different to the Crusaders who in our game were hell bent on attacking our rucks thereby committing more men to the breakdown and giving us space on the outer.

This brings me back to MAULS. I think we need to reinstitute the maul as a strategy even though we have was looks to be one of the smaller forward packs. I don't mean the accidental mauls that happen when someone's tackled but not to ground, no, I mean the planned mauls. From what I saw on Friday, we had no way of sucking in their players and therefore were constantly shut down when the ball went out wide.

A maul would ideally force the defensive players to move back in to stop movement and at the minimum take out atleast 4 of their players. From there there are numerous other options such as then have a quick ruck (if necessary) to get the other forwards hanging out on the fringes and then quick ball (again, ideally) to our backs who are a talented mob.

I'm not suggesting constant use of the maul but atleast it will keep the defenders guessing and create a bit of hesitation (ie, keep them tighter).

With the new laws, I'm seeing a significant shift in the way the game is played and as importantly, the way its being ref'd. As a lover of the intricacies of the game..they are afterall what made me love the game in the first place..I'm somewhat getting depressed by what I see. Sure the game does appear to be faster and I guess some would see that as entertaining but to me it also appears to be pretty much a helter-skelter affair with less structure and patience. I supported the ELVs at the start but can now see the NH's resistance and arguments against.

Perhaps I'm still recovering from what I saw on Friday and abit depressed..I'm sure I'll get over it.

Kenya: I think you have come to the same conclusion about the ELV's that I did a while ago, ELV's have some huge flaws in them that make me fear that they will be put through and break rugby as it used to be...

The two biggest changes that I could see in the Force game plan (on the attack side) were lack of support runners when the ball carrier approached the defensive line, and perhaps as a result of no support, Force players did not seem to be freeing the ball/hands to pass it on at contact. During the games against the Crusaders and moreso against the Blues and HIghlanders the off load was a particularly pleasing and positive aspect of the FOrce game. It was not something that we had seen a lot of in the previous two seasons and appeared to be an indication of a more mature and confident game plan.

Obviously on the defensive side there were significant issues. Is it tiredness that lets these tries through? I've noticed with each passing week this season the boys come out 'asleep' at the start of half - is this another indication of a very challenging travel schedule to date?