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I considered that but.........
"You have the exciting opportunity to experience what being a Member of our club is all about through attending this highly anticipated match-up by purchasing a Final Game Membership."
.........would seem a strange way of asking us to do that.
Will be interesting to see what side runs out.
Couple of interesting snippets about signings to come and about Ferguson and Ball. Wonder who really wants Ferguson.
Nice praise for Tim as well. He deserves it.
Western Force will face New Zealand NPC heavyweights Bay of Plenty Steamers with new-look squad
Nick Taylor
The West Australian
Fri, 9 July 2021 1:51PM
Nick Taylor
Western Force coach Tim Sampson will need to go deep into a skinny squad for next Friday’s “invitation” clash with New Zealand NPC heavyweight Bay of Plenty at HBF Park.
The Steamers will bring a Super Rugby-laden side while Sampson has lost 10 players from last season who have already left.
He will also be without hooker Feleti Kaitu’u and second-rower Sitaleki Timani who are on Wallaby duty and flanker Tim Anstee.
Newly-signed scrum-half Issak Fines-Leleiwasa, fly-half Reesjan Pasitoa and backs Bayley Kuenzle and Reece Tapine all from the Brumbies, Crusaders winger Manasa Mataele and Wallabies second-rower Izack Rodda are unavailable.
Retiring props Kieran Longbottom and Chris Heiberg will be given a farewell appearance and Sampson will give fringe and academy players an opportunity.
“We are preparing as best we can,” Sampson said.
“The lockdown stifled us a bit and given we haven’t played for five weeks or so you don’t want to change things up too much.
“We’ll be sticking mostly to what we did last year.
“We have to make sure that those young players coming in are comfortable but they have been in the system for a while and are chomping at the bit.”
Sampson has done a remarkable job in his first two seasons as a Super Rugby coach.
He moulded a hastily thrown together side with little notice when the Force were invited to join last year’s Australian Super Rugby competition.
This season he took the “odd squad” of overseas internationals, players coming to the end of their careers and a healthy dose of debutants and local talent to their first finals.
Highlanders star Michael Collins said before their clash: “They’re sort of a bunch of misfits...they love it, they have a good time, they play for each other, obviously a wicked culture.”
Sampson will need to maintain that culture next season as he rebuilds another new-look squad.
They are expected to sign a flanker and outside back with NRL winger Blake Ferguson being pushed hard at the Force by his manager Sam Ayoub after being unwanted by Parramatta.
Backs Richard Kahui and Tony Pulu, prop Greg Holmes and second-rower Jeremy Thrush are re-signing but former Wales second-rower Jake Ball, who left the Scarlets to join his family in Perth, is only an outside chance of joining.
Ball could demand a big salary but because he does not qualify for a Rugby Australia top-up the Force would be unable to get him under the salary cap.
Rugby Reg over at green and gold is suggesting Rodda will be playing club rugby for Brisbane Wests next week due to Rennie wanting a look at him.
While a prospect for him to perhaps see gold is welcome, I would've thought BoP would be a better standard than Hospital Cup.
But, if true, I suppose that's where Rennie is...
Rennie wouldn't want him locked away in the west if he's planning on using him, but I'm a bit surprised that he's looking at locks, Alan of the seven A's was the only tight forward I had issues with last week and all of the locks were serviceable.
It does change the story I'd heard a few weeks ago that suggested Rodda would be playing against the steamers so I'm inclined to believe the rumour. I do think there are bigger holes to cover rhough
C'mon the
At this time. Stan Sport has "nothing to announce" re: plans to televise the Force v Bay of Plenty match.
Exile
Port Macquarie
"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!" - Rocky Balboa
All TWFers with Stan. Go to Contact Support and then Feedback and ask them to broadcast the game.
If they can broadcast all these minor club games from Syd and Qld, when probably get close to zero viewers in Perth. Melbourne, NZ etc, surely they can air a Force game, which they could also sell to NZ?
Thanks for your email.
At this stage there is nothing to announce on this match. However, we have passed along your request to our Sport Team.
TBH, that is probably expecting a little much for a random friendly. If it were actually leading somewhere, towards a real NRC replacement perhaps, there might have been some merit in streaming the game themselves so they had some empirical evidence of support. But even then, I'm sure there would be a number of additional steps and opportunities to gather such information. In the meantime, I still think games like this could be golden opportunities to engage with school or university media departments to give them some real world experience.
Exile
Port Macquarie
"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!" - Rocky Balboa
Get Twiggy to snap his fingers
It can be done significantly cheaper than that.
Obviously the standard of the tv coverage has to scale with the type of match being covered.
Let me put it this way ... the cost they sink into producing a Hospital Cup club game at Wests in Brisbane is much, much lower than for a full-noise Bledisloe Cup match.
NRC games have been covered before, even night-time ones. You're still looking at many thousands ... but it wouldn't need to be $200k.
Given that this falls out of the TV deal maybe RugbyWA should have been proactive by organising a telecast.
Possibly would have been difficult with WA locked down 2 weeks ago and restrictions only being lifted yesterday.