Touring squad named

[travelling_gerry]

Head Coach Richard Graham has selected a 25 man touring squad for matches against the Lions in Johannesburg this Saturday followed by the Stormers in Cape Town in a fortnight.

Matt Dunning, who has a foot injury, is the only exclusion from the match day 22 that drew against the Blues in Perth last week while Tim Fairbrother and Australian U20’s representative Paul Alo-Emile return to bolster the front row. Big lock Tom Hockings and new signing Brian Sefanaia are the other inclusions into the touring squad.

Flyhalf Willie Ripia will stay in Perth for the remainder of the week and continue to step-up his training load before a decision is made whether he will be brought across for the week six match against the Stormers at Newlands.

A match day 22 for the Lions clash at Ellis Park (Saturday, 19 March) will be advised on Thursday.

Emirates Western Force touring squad

Forwards: Paul Alo-Emile, Richard Brown, Nathan Charles, Pek Cowan, Tim Fairbrother, Tom Hockings, Matt Hodgson (vc), Jono Jenkins, Kieran Longbottom, Ben McCalman, Tevita Metuisela, Nathan Sharpe (c), Ben Whittaker, Sam Wykes

Backs: Matt Brandon, Nick Cummins, Pat Dellit, Gene Fairbanks, Alfie Mafi, James O’Connor, Brian Sefanaia, Brett Sheehan, Cameron Shepherd, David Smith, James Stannard

[zimeric]

gah still no Ripia!

[bunter]

gah still no Ripia!

Lemon

[James]

He'll be back for the Rebels. Give him a chance lads.

[benny]

Can we please have all injury prone players on the ole fashioned payment method. no base salary but match payments. We had it with Caleb Brown why cant we do the same...

Have a look at the present and past players who haven't played more than half a dozen games since being at the force.When we signed the below we were all over the moon and ready to make the finals, but the below were never on the park long enough.

Willie Ripia
Bart
Adam Clarke
Sam Harris
Ioane
Lachlan Mackay
Pretious
Rudi
Pusey

and the list can go on for our supposably "star players"

[slomo]

Lemon

not another lemon!....$$$$$$

[slomo]

He'll be back for the Rebels. Give him a chance lads.

fair point, but thats round 7.... a third of the season will have gone by then....

[BDAVEY]

We want Willie at the business in... need him 100% fit....good move I feel the backs are starting to click

[Burgs]

Bit harsh on Puse!?

[GIGS20]

Probably fairer than the truth.....he just wasn't good enough to push his way into the XV

[Burgs]

He played his part.

[GIGS20]

Oh, no doubt, but his intermittent appearances weren't greatly attributable to his fitness was my point.

[shasta]

Lemon

Did you also reckon that when he was playing for The Naki?

[sandgroperrugby]

We want Willie at the business in... need him 100% fit....good move I feel the backs are starting to click

The way the season is panning out under the new format the whole series in the business end.

[Burgs]

Yeah I agree Grope, you hear so much about "It's a long season" at the start of the year, then around Round 10 you'll start hearing Coaches saying "...because it's such a short season."

Every match is worth the same amount of points and you can't afford to drop Round 1 any more than you can Round 15 to 18.