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'It's a real fight for the finals now': What the Force need to do to make the Super Rugby AU playoffs
By AAP
Western Force players will treat their final two games like finals fixtures, and they're well aware bonus points could end up deciding their fate.
The Force kept their finals hopes alive with a pulsating 16-15 Super Rugby AU win over the Melbourne Rebels at AAMI Park on Friday night.
The result means the Force are now just one point behind the third-placed Rebels with two rounds remaining.
The Force will host the last-placed NSW Waratahs and ladder-leading Queensland Reds in their final two rounds.
The Rebels play the second-placed Brumbies (home) and Waratahs (away).
If both sides snare just one win each from those games as widely predicted, then bonus points or points differential will decide who snares third spot and a place in the finals.
The Force's score differential is minus 49 compared to the Rebels' minus nine.
It means the Force can ill afford to let a bonus point slip when they take on the Waratahs in Perth on Saturday night.
"It's a real fight for the finals now. We're treating every game as it's a semi or a quarter-final," Force prop Tom Robertson, who crossed from the Waratahs at the end of last year, said.
"If we don't win this week, it will be really tough for us to make the finals.
"Obviously we've got to get the win first, but the bonus point, we need to get at least one over the next two weeks to secure finals.
"Then it means we don't have to rely on the Rebels, their results, in order to secure that spot.
"We're hoping to get a bonus point. But if we get two wins in the next two weeks, then that's our priority."
The Waratahs are winless after six games, but in their first game after coach Rob Penney was sacked, they showed far more fight and class in a 24-22 loss to the Brumbies.
The Force scraped past the Waratahs 20-16 in round three, and Robertson is expecting an even tougher challenge this time around.
"The Waratahs are a lot more dangerous now compared to the first time we played them," Robertson said.
"They got Jake Gordon back, who is pretty much the source of all their attack.
"I played with Jake for a few years and he's dynamic and a good ball runner.
"We have to be careful of him. He's really ignited their backline and they're playing really well out wide now."
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Latest Comments
I hope super bee and mopar didn’t read it all.
Go to commentsYou’ve got to look forward to next weekend more than anything too.
They really use this sorta system? Much smaller pool of bonus points available, that would mean they have far less impact. Interestingly you must be withen winning range/chance in France’s Top 14 league, rather that just draw territory, so 6 points instead of 7. Fairly arbitrary and pointless (something the NRL would do to try and look cool), but kinda cool.
I said it Nick’s and other articles, I’m not sure about the fixed nature of matchups in these opening rounds. For instance, I would be interested in seeing an improved ranking/prediction/reflection ladder to what we had last year, were some author here game so rejigged list of teams purely based of ‘who had played who’ so far in the competition. It was designed to analyze the ladder and better predict what the real order would be after the full round robin had completed. It needed some improvement, like factoring in historical data as well, as it was a bit skiwif, but it is the sort of thing that would give a better depiction of what sort of contests weve had so far, because just using my intuition, the matchups have been very ‘level appropriate’ so far, and were jet to get the other end of the spectrum, season ranked bottom sides v top sides etc.
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