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Fresh off a terrific win over the Brumbies, the Emirates Western Force is enjoying things a week into a three-game road trip and want to keep the improved form going against the Chiefs in Hamilton on Friday.
After a long week with Matt Giteau announcing he was returning to Canberra next season, the Force put it all behind them to score a spirit-lifting 25-16 win over the Brumbies with Cameron Shepherd returning to be at the forefront with three tries.
The Force have also kept a relatively stable team together for the first time this season with a win over the Chiefs at Waikato Stadium set to keep them in the Super 14 top-four after four games.
Richard Brown goes out injured and is replaced by Tamaiti Horua in the starting line-up, while AJ Whalley and David Pusey have joined the squad on the reserves bench in place of Kieran Longbottom.
Shepherd missed the week 2 win over the Cheetahs with an ankle injury which could still have stemmed from his badly broken leg last year, but he returned to score three tries and while he doesn’t feel he worked overly hard for them, it boosted his confidence again.
"I didn’t actually have to do too much. Every time I caught the ball, I looked up and saw nobody in front of me," Shepherd said.
"They were probably the three easiest tries I've ever scored, but I'm still working my way back from my broken leg and it was nice to score a couple of tries and get the confidence up."
As for beating the Chiefs, Shepherd feels matching them physically is the key as the Force backline of Josh Valentine, Giteau, himself, Junior Pelesasa, Ryan Cross, Nick Cummins, Drew Mitchell and James O'Connor off the bench is world class.
"They've been pretty unlucky in their three games against teams at the top of the table. We are expecting a really physical encounter and that's what the boys have to get up for," he said.
"If we match them physically, we know we have the skill to give them a good run but if we can't we will get ourselves in trouble."
The Force are now in Hamilton preparing to battle the Chiefs and will remain in New Zealand to face the Crusaders on Saturday March 14, but Shepherd believes getting away from Perth has actually benefited the team.
"There's no secret that we've had some issues going on and it's been a really refreshing time since we got away from Perth. It has brought us more tightly together and the win obviously helps with that."
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are going to be filtering alot of their players through the eastern state comps this year, I know a few of the "apprentices" have been told to play a few games over there.
Originally Posted by goony
