THE Western Force bid an emotional farewell to eight members of the side and an assistant coach with a 33-28 win over the Highlanders on Saturday night.

And the Force also bid a thankful farewell to Subiaco Oval.

As the lights went out on the worst rugby ground in Super 14 for the last time - the Force is moving to Members Equity Stadium next season - it brought an end to the Force careers of Tai McIsaac, Scott Staniforth, Matt Giteau, Drew Mitchell, Tamaiti Horua, Junior Pelesasa, Josh Valentine and Ben Castle and assistant coach John Mulvihill.

Horua's exit was a painful one, helped off midway through the first period with an ankle injury.

A couple of other players, including David Pusey, the first ever Force signing, who did not make last night's team sheet are also likely to be packing their bags.

However, on his current form the tough, versatile Staniforth should get a deserved Wallaby call-up, something that would bring joy to Force fans as it could delay his departure to Japan for one more year.

Flanker Matt Hodgson is another who deserves a Wallaby spot after an outstanding season.

The win meant that last night the Force was seventh, equalling their best-ever finish and Giteau's haul of 13 points made him the highest scorer in Force history with 128 points.

The Force scrum faced a big test, particularly when both Horua and Sam Wykes went off injured but they stood up well and its backline had too much class for the New Zealanders, Giteau putting in a final command performance.

But Force fans would have had their hearts in their mouths as the Highlanders clawed their way back from 33-7 down to within just 12 points as they ended with a flurry and then scored on the siren.

An enterprising Force opened with a burst of energy and gained early, easy metres from a tired looking Highlanders, on their way back home from South Africa.

After just 41 seconds Ryan Cross ran onto a Matt Giteau kick ahead to dot down then Staniforth, hardly surprisingly, had an ear-to-ear grin as he dived over for the second five pointer after six minutes.

Giteau missed both conversions and as the Force ran out of a little steam he could only kick two penalties.

But then the little five-eighth produced a piece of brilliance.

Running left he slotted an inch-perfect kick over the defence to the right where Mitchell collected the bounce and slipped a pass to the once again grinning Staniforth.

Giteau's conversion made him the Force's highest point scorer going ahead of Cameron Shepherd's previous record of 121.

The Highlanders gave the Force a little taste of their own medicine with a very early second half try from Ben Smith, converted by Dan Bowden

Giteau opened up a little more daylight with his third penalty before Haig Sare went over in the left hand corner and Giteau slotted the difficult conversion.

But just when the Force fans were celebrating victory the Highlanders scored two quick five pointers from Smith and Tom Donnelly. Both converted. Jimmy Cowan scored on the siren.

Force captain Nathan Sharpe said his side defended well in the first half but the Highlanders threw the ball around in the second period and were hard to defend.

He said it was a "fantastic" way to send off the leaving players.

"We'll enjoy our last few days with those boys and wish them all the best in their future endeavours and no doubt see a few of them, running out on the field next year against them."

He said the side had played its best football in its four years this season but only in patches.

"Unfortunately that's probably the thing that's hurt us, too much patches, some weeks we've been red hot and other weeks we've had a good 40-50 minutes and let ourselves down a little bit."

Coach John Mitchell said it was good for the players to finish on a high note, particularly for those who were foundation members.

"We have built a lot of confidence in our attack in the last few weeks," he said

He was full of praise for his back row: "They've been working away all year and we're very fortunate that we've got outstanding loose forwards.

"(We're) looking forward to the re-start. We've got a clear strategy in mind. It's very clear where we want to head to as an organisation."

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