The rain may have been torrential and the conditions heavy in Saturday’s 31-13 loss to the Fijian Drua but that was no excuse for the defeat according to Western Force head coach Simon Cron and acting captain Nic White.
The Force started strong in the difficult conditions at Churchill Park in Lautoka, with Tom Horton dotting in the second minute, but the Drua raced to an 18-5 lead.
The away side weren’t helped by ball handling errors along with penalties, but Cron lamented the side’s inability to execute the gameplan.
“Not the result we wanted,” Cron told reporters post-game.
“It was heavy conditions but when we got here, we knew that might happen. It’s been raining her for three weeks.
“We had a plan around that, we just didn’t execute that plan very well.
“We had enough opportunities in that game to put a lot of pressure on. And probably alleviated the pressure with the errors or the penalties.”
White echoed Cron’s sentiment, while adding he felt the players were well off their best.
“The ground conditions were pretty tough but that’s no excuse,” White said.
“I did enjoy the atmosphere here. People really coming out in the rain. We love playing in front of full stadiums.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here. The Fijian people are very welcoming. I just didn’t enjoy the game in terms of our performance.
“We didn’t turn up, we didn’t play well enough. Everything outside of that, it’s a beautiful place, beautiful people.”
Trailing 18-10 at the interval after Chase Tiatia’s try on half-time, the Force had an opportunity to get back into the game when Tevita Ikanivere’s yellow card was upgraded to red, offering the visitors a numerical advantage.
But it was the Drua who pulled away during that period, with Iosefa Masi scoring a try while Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula added a couple of penalties.
“When they had the red card, we didn’t (capitalize),” Cron said. “We probably gave away a couple of penalties and they were able to kick those.
“It was three tries to two and we bombed a couple, down the left edge with Chase going out.
“I felt in the first half we alleviated some pressure, lost lineouts, rather than building pressure. There’s occasions where we could’ve been better.
“We created some opportunities but the reason they were able to get inside our 22 was our own errors, like their kickoff and one of our players puts his hand down to try and stop it when he needed to use his leg in the wet.
“Just educating our boys around some simple rugby brains stuff. We’ve got to own that.
“Obviously frustrating for us. 15 on 15 irrelevant. I thought we started well, good maul, good set-piece structure and then we let them back int the game. Credit to hem, they played well.
White, who had an ongoing battle with Drua scrum-half Frank Lomani throughout the contest, paid tribute to his opposite number who brought up 50 Super Rugby caps in the contest.
“He played well today,” White said. “He’s a competitor and I like that. He also leaves it out on the field, he’s a good man. Congratulations to him.”
The Force (1-5), who fall into 12th spot on the Super Rugby Pacific ladder, next face the Blues (5-1) in Auckland on Friday from 2:05pm WST.
