Pre Season Match 5 February 2011 - Eastwood NSW

[jargan83]

Cheers Exille, love your work!
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[Darren]

Official Scores:

Force 'A' enjoy their first clash scoring 7 tries to defeat the Brumby Runners 43-5

Emirates Western Force 40 (Tries: R.Brown, D.Smith, B.McCalman, M.Hodgson, A.Mafi, M.Inman) def Aust. Barbarians 24 in Sydney

[Guru]

Thanks Exile You have done an exceptional job.

[Burgs]

Nice work X

I'm thinking that exercise wasn't really worth fifty odd airfares and hotel beds...
Surely we can find more testing opposition than that???

[.X.]

First up let me apologise for the dodgy typing and lack of score keeping.

Some other things that were noticed around the ground etc.

Had the pleasure of meeting Pheonix Battye's Dad - great guy, card and pin presented to him.

TIF caught up with Mr and Mrs Shepherds (Cam's Mum and dad) card and pins presented as well.

and Pins presented to as many of the Alfi Family as we could manage. What a lovely group.

In the A game - the young blonde number 10 injured his shoulder. Looked pretty bad.

Sam Wykes came off the ground with a shoulder injury. Had Ice on it soon after coming off the field and did not appear to be too distressed.

I must say the first 20 minutes of the Main Game the Western Force were running like a well oiled machine and the Barbarians appeared to be a team out of sync and acting like a team thrown together about 4 days ago.

The game appeared to be 20 minutes 40 minutes 20 minutes. But I did not have a watch on to have any idea of timings.

The last 20 or 30 minutes all players appeared to hit a wall and the intensity dropped off dramatically.

I don't blame them - I was sweating just typing the updates.

After the match - the Force guys were brilliant as always - Zoe had brought her Wally the Wallaby and got it autographed by all the Force Wallabies. and then TIF presented Zoe with a Gilbert Force Ball. Considering the guys had just run their collective butts off for 80+ minutes, the smiles and polite conversations they had with my daughter was an absolute credit to RugbyWA and their sponsors.

Zoe and I had an excellent day and hope to have many more this season.

Exile.

[GIGS20]

Thanks again ex. Looks like it would have been a good run all round. I expect the coaching staff were pretty happy with the way it went (except maybe the whole injured lock thing)

[Thequeerone]

Ex THANKS

[Lee Grant]

Western Force A 45 - Brumby Runners 5 (I think)

The Force Twos put away the Brumbies Twos no problemo in the heat today. The Runners may have had a few missing players with the main team in Darwin last night but I don't think it would have made a lot of difference. Individually there didn't seem to be a whole lot of difference in the players but together it was a different story: the Force were the superior team.

Some comments about the players.

Force A

• 13. Cummins didn't look like he belonged in an A team. He was hard to stop just about every time he had the ball.

• 15. Dellit looks like a Super player: he's a smooth runner and ghosted through a couple of times. His work combining with Cummins was first rate. These two will be in the Ones with if others have an injury or two.

• 10. Godwin had a terrific game: starting slowly and working into the game nicely. He made some good runs and facilitated well but it looked like he popped his right shoulder towards the end of the game.

• 2. Siliva looks like he is going to make it as a professional one of these days. Has an athletic build and was handy with everything he did. Has some good folks in front of him though.

• 3. PAE came off the bench and looked the part. Hasn't lost any weight since leaving school but was light on his feet. Once he ran into a tackler accelerating into full speed and the poor bugger bounced off him, up and then back.

• 9. Stannard came off the bench and looked like a swan amongst the ducks, making ground for himself or others.

Runners

• 1. Ofa is going to be handy if there are a couple of injuries. He looked OK today, but in that company he would.

• 5. Carter must be close to 2M tall but half a metre of it is neck. He was a goer but big lock Neville from the bench had a top game. I always thought of him as a nice as pie skills lock but he hit the line bloody hard.

• 7. Ale poached quite a few balls and could be on track to be a pro player in a while, but there are too many young fetchers in front of him in the Brumbies.

• 11. Fou – very elusive but should have passed a couple of times. Very fast.

• 6. Alexander (brother Tom) looked handy as a big bastard flanker but didn't get much time

• Winger Iongi (SP??) was a live wire and very hard to stop.

• Last year's Oz Schools stars 2. Roach and 14. Crook didn't disgrace themselves. One of these days I am going to see Crook get the ball but I'm not holding my breath. No he didn't get it today either.

[Lee Grant]

Western Force 40 - Australian Barbarians 24 (I think)

Their game was slightly cooler but not a lot because it was stinking hot. I must say the TG Milner ground was in tip top shape as it looked like a dustbowl when I was there last year.

The Force put up a good lead of 40-5 but were less effective as the reserves came on. To be fair the Baas were a scratch team of mostly Sydney club players with a few Tahs ring-ins. They obviously hadn't had many training sessions and the amateurs were blowing hard.

Some thoughts about the Force players:

• Kiwis 10. Ripia and 14 Smith were outstanding. Ripia kept mixing up his game during the match. He's a bossy bugger and got his players on the same song sheet. Smith was all class and speed and worked hard off the ball about being in the right position to support the ball carrier. A few times he was side by side with Mafi on the other wing and played they off each other.

Smith was often standing out wide and signalling for a cross kick when he was on the western side of the ground but they kept ignoring him. I wondered why he was doing this so much and the penny dropped – he wanted to be in the shade of the stand.

• 11. Mafi sliced up the Baas a few times and it's good to see him running around again without injury.

• 4. Wykes is looking more robust and playing like it than the last time I saw him in Sydney.

• 5. Battye was a good surprise. I hadn't seen much of him before and thought he was a bit of a pussycat when I did, but the big unit played a heavy game and was active for a huge bloke.

• 13. Inman looked good running straight through gaps, or with powerful leg drive after being grabbed, but it's a pity that he's not faster. Once the Baas 8. Perret made a break with Inman right behind him but he fell further behind before Perret scored. Perret is the fastest forward in Sydney but still, it wasn't a good look. Perhaps Inman's future is at 12. [Talking of which: Fairbanks was a bit anonymous.]

• I won't say much about the usual suspects who all played well: Brown, Hodgson, Sheehan, but McCalman looked outstanding. JOC looked like he could sidestep you in a phone box but geez his goal kicking wasn't that good.

[.X.]

Thank you for a quality write up Mr Grant

[James]

Yeah cheers Lee. Much appreciated.

[Boomer]

In the A game - the young blonde number 10 injured his shoulder. Looked pretty bad.

Western Force A 45 - Brumby Runners 5 (I think)

Force A

• 10. Godwin had a terrific game: starting slowly and working into the game nicely. He made some good runs and facilitated well but it looked like he popped his right shoulder towards the end of the game.

Exile, Lee - wonderful stuff.

Godwin - a shoulder, from a bloody scratchie? Anyone got an update?

[Lee Grant]

PS - There were no team lists for the A game and I didn't know a lot the local WA or ACT players. So I asked one of the Force mafia if he had a list he said he didn't but yelled out to this other bloke who gave me his clipboard and I copied the names down.

Then I saw this other bloke with a clipboard. I knew he wasn't strictly a Brumbies guy any more but he had a Brumbies shirt on and I asked if had the Brumbies Runners list. "Yeah mate." I copied them down.

As nice as pie those two blokes: Bloke 1. - Mitch Hardy; Bloke 2. - Patricio Noriega.

[brokendown gunfighter]

did Cameron Shepherd get a run?
I think he fronts the ARU on Monday

[.X.]

Cam ran water for both games. As did dave pocock and matt dunning
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