Time to Force home advantage

[Swee_82]

Time to Force home advantage
By Wayne Smith
April 04, 2008 BY any normal standards, this should be when Western Force starts cranking up their drive for the play-offs, with four home matches scheduled in its final six fixtures, including their clash with reigning champions the Bulls.

Instead, however much the team might deny it, the prospect of playing at Subiaco Oval has them in a dither because, uniquely among Super 14 teams, the Force has a worse record at home than they do away.

Incredibly, the Perth team has only a 25 per cent winning record in front of their faithful Blue Crew (yep another shoutout to our 'faithful' freeloading brethern). They have taken the points in only four of their 16 matches, with honours shared in the controversial 2006 encounter with the Crusaders.

By contrast, the WA players turn into warriors on the road, with seven wins and a draw to show from their 17 away outings, a return that matches their rivals tonight, even though the Bulls won the title last year and were beaten semi-finalists in 2006.

Indeed, only the Crusaders, with 10 wins from 16 away games during the two-and-a-half seasons the Force have been playing in Super 14, have a better record of handling hostile crowds and pumped-up home sides. Understandably, something approaching mass denial seizes Force players whenever this bizarre anomaly is pointed out to them.

"Is that right?" asked skipper Natham Sharpe yesterday when his side's dismal Subiaco record was spelt out to him. The closest he could come to an explanation was to suggest that 2006, the Force's debut season, was "a pretty dry year", with the only victory coming in South Africa against the Cheetahs.

Certainly the Perth club turned things around in 2007, and mathematically were still in with a chance of sneaking into the semi-finals coming into the last round. But it has been this season's results that most starkly have exposed the Force's vulnerability at home.

After narrowly losing to the Sharks in Durban, Sharpe's team disposed of the Cheetahs and Lions in South Africa. Then, on their next road trip, they notched their historic first win on New Zealand soil at the expense of the Blues and followed it up the following weekend by clawing their way to a result against the Highlanders.

But bookending those New Zealand results were a gallant defeat at the hands of the Crusaders and a galling loss to the Stormers last weekend, both matches being played at Subiaco Oval.

Where the Crusaders' performance had the faithful in Perth puffing their chests, the Force plumbed the depths against the team from the Western Cape, the Stormers feasting on a host of handling errors, and wayward and even intercepted passes to blow their hosts away.

As coach John Mitchell acknowledged wryly yesterday, "the top four inches" weren't right but then again the bottom 180cm were not that flash either with the Stormers outrunning and overrunning the Force.

Sharpe admitted the defeat had stung the squad but Mitchell has been coaching too long to bank on the ferocity his players have shown in training this week translating into a much better attitude tonight.

"Who knows?" he said. "We'll find out tonight."

The omens weren't especially promising, with inside centre Lachlan Mackay forced to give up his place because of a minor groin injury.

Scott Staniforth comes in off the wing to take over in the midfield position he invariably covers well whenever the Australia selectors have turned to him.

Still, where Mackay is a creative ball-player, capable of easing some of the responsibilities that fall to Matt Giteau, Staniforth is more direct and confrontational. Against the most direct and confrontational team in the competition, it will be intriguing to see how effective he can be.

Similarly the inclusion of Nick Cummings (excuse me... who?) on the wing puts a new slant on the Force attack. An accomplished finisher, once described by Glen Ella as the best sevens prospect he had seen since Giteau, Cummings started the season with brilliant runs and crunching tackles but struggled since to replicate the form.

Nor have the Force forwards escaped intact, with backrower Tamati Horua ruled out with injury yesterday, his bench spot being awarded to Matt Hodgson.

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Normally wanyo's stuffs not too bad, but a couple of less than stellar moments in this one. Anyway, here's to a big one for the boys tonight to put all this crap about being weak at home to bed! Go

[gustafsl]

Couple issues I want to address here:

1) 4 wins and a draw at home out of 16 (has it been 16? from my count we had seven at home last year so the year before wouldn't we have had 6, or did we get a bonus home game because it was our first year) may seem like crap...but let's look at it in more detail.

I think we can be let off not winning at home in year 1. Let's face it, we didn't exactly put a lot of wins on the board that year. And it is no surprise the draw came in our last home match (against the top team) as we were finally starting to work as a team.

Last year we lost by 1 point in our first two home games and then won four in a row at home. We lost the last home game to the Blues (one of the top teams).

This year we have lost (barley) to the Crusaders (the top team). Admittedly we played crap against the Stormers but we aren't exactly the only team they beat on tour.

So the way I see it is we have actually won 4 out of our last 7 at home. And the three loses have come against teams that anyone in the comp would have trouble beating at home.

2) 2nd issue is the use of the word Force. You would think the media would come up with something different every now and then. But all we ever year is "a Force to be reckon with" "Force, force their way over the line" "May the Force be with you" Alright we get it, they are called the Force, but it isn't clever if you use the word force as part of your headline to describe something being done by the team called the Force. Get some new material.

[slomo]

faithful blue crew , that'll be the ones that don't even pay in to the game.......thats faith for you....