Western Force head coach Simon Cron was enthused by his side’s improved display in Saturday’s 22-19 loss to the ACT Brumbies but again lamented their penalty count.
There were plenty of positives for the Force, who led 14-0 in the first half, and won the clean breaks count 7-3 and looked dangerous in attack. Cron’s side were improved in defence with 111-81 tackles with just 16 missed tackles for the game.
But the Force’s discipline was critical in the narrow defeat, conceding 16-4 penalties including a Harry Potter yellow card followed by an hands-in-the-ruck infringement early in the second half before the Brumbies got on top, scoring two tries in the corresponding 15 minutes.
“I thought we started really well,” Cron told reporters. “We had some good defensive blocks which has been one of the things we’ve been working a lot on from previous games.
“I thought the boys were a lot better in terms of that and the contact zone. Fourteen points up, good start.
“A couple of little things in our game; if you look overall in our game, it was a 16-4 penalty count. You’ve got to look at where they came from? Did we cause them? What were they exactly?
“We gave away the yellow card straight after half-time. For the next 10 minutes we were probably trying to chase it, rather than knowing we were in control. That’s part of the growing process of our team.”
The Force had a 35th minute Potter try disallowed upon review for a Ryan Coxon obstruction which opened a gap for Ben Donaldson to pierce through and set up the chance.
In the final minutes of the game with three points the difference, Potter also had an opportunity when he broke forward down the right edge but lost the ball forward under apparent heavy contact to the head which went unpunished and left him bloodied, but Cron wouldn’t be drawn on either incident.
“I thought Potts’ line break near the end was a good one,” he said. “We were in a really good position.
“I’ve got to take a look at that and review it. Initially from the coaches’ box it looked like the hand came over the top of the ball and on to the face.
“Either way we need to keep control of the ball there, they were under a lot of pressure there.”
Force captain Jeremy Williams agreed with Cron that the side tried to chase the game when reduced to 14 players.
“Whenever you’ve down to 14 men it’s always quite hard,” the skipper said. “We tended to chase the game a bit which wasn’t what we needed to do.
“We needed to stick to our systems and our defensive patterns. Definitely felt after that yellow card they had the momentum, but we seemed to wrestle it back.”
The Force return to Perth for Round 4 where they will host Moana Pasifika at HBF Park from 7pm on Friday, preceded by the Super W season opener between the Force and Melbourne Rebels from 4:30pm.
“The main thing for us is to take it game by game,” Williams said when asked about the Force’s winless start to the season.
“We don’t look too far ahead. We look at who we’ve got next week which is Moana. We’ll keep the boys focused on that. I’m sure we’ll be alright.”
Tickets for Friday’s double-header are available by Ticketmaster, while six-game Force Memberships (for the remaining six home games at HBF Park) are on sale now.
