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Force end home drought despite Nabuli treble
By Peter Thompson
Western Force produced a second-half fightback to claim their first Super Rugby home win since May 2015 as an Eto Nabuli hat-trick could not prevent Reds from suffering a 26-19 defeat on Thursday.
Not since a defeat of Waratahs 22 months ago have Force come out on top at nib Stadium, but Chance Peni marked his home debut with a try and fellow code-switcher Curtis Rona scored his first in Super Rugby to bring the drought to an end.
David Wessels' men were beaten by Waratahs in their first game of the season, but led after only two minutes in Perth when Peni burst through to score in the corner after some inventive work in midfield.
Reds made the trip west buoyed by a defeat of Sharks and they were on course to make it two wins out of two when Nabuli dived over out wide, before coming up with a superb solo effort to go under the posts straight from the kick-off.
Force took that burst on the chin and were level at half-time courtesy of Matt Philip's converted try, but wing Nabuli raced onto a Duncan Paia'aua grubber to become only the second Reds player to claim a Super Rugby treble nine minutes after the break.
Two Ian Prior penalties left Force trailing by just a point and Rona was on hand to finish off a brisk move from left to right 11 minutes from time after Reds prop Sef Fa’agase was sin-binned for a no-arms tackle.
Prior was successful from the tee for a third time late on as Reds slipped to a nine consecutive away defeat.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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