'How did we not win that game?'
NICK TAYLOR, The West Australian
February 22, 2011, 11:36 am
The Western Force know too well that Sunday’s one-point loss to the Queensland Reds was the one that got away.
Their game plan effectively nullified the Reds’ three main strike weapons.
The half-back pairing of Will Genia and Quade Cooper around the ruck were taken out of the game and powerful speedster Digby Ioane, who likes to hit the line hard off a Cooper inside ball from a line-out, was stopped in his tracks.
The Force “in-your-face” defence and ruck work rattled several of the Reds, particularly Genia.
The back-row trio was effectively a back-row quintet, with Ben McCalman as destructive from the second row as from the side of the scrum and Nathan Sharpe picking up from last year’s great season.
Yet they could never get more than six points ahead and that was decisive when Cooper converted replacement hooker James Hanson’s late try to beat the Force 21-20.
Force coach Richard Graham said his side had been naïve towards the end of the game, trying to play its way out of defence rather than kicking for position.
Forwards coach Nick Stiles knows it was a game the WA outfit should have had in the bag.
“We’ll review the tape and we’ll say ‘how did we not win that game’,” Stiles said. “We dominated in all facets. The only thing we didn’t win was the game.”
Stiles said that despite the loss he was pleased with the way the pack stepped up.
They took two Reds line-outs, a tighthead and turned over several balls, in stark contrast to the way they were dealt with at times by the Waratahs in the second pre-season trial.
“One of the things we can take out is how well the forwards stepped up,” Stiles said.
“We were unhappy with our game against the Waratahs and the pleasing thing was the guys responded to that.
“Full credit to the guys. We had a big thing about ‘getting the job done’ this week.
“Individually we said that if you get your job done we’ll come together collectively as a group. The guys did that.”
Stiles said the hype generated about the big pack the Reds threw at his side was not a concern.
“There was a lot of talk during the week about the size of the Reds’ forwards pack. They picked very heavy guys,” he said.
“James Slipper, Saia Faingaa, Ben Daley in the front row are all the flavour of the month with the Wallabies and our boys really had a good go against them.
“How could they write us off so easily.”
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/spo...win-that-game/
