Western Force head coach Simon Cron wants his players to embrace the foreign conditions and frenzied crowd they’ll face away to the Fijian Drua in Saturday’s Super Rugby Pacific clash.
The Force take on the Drua at Churchill Park in Lautoka from 9:05am WST on Saturday, live on Stan Sport. The Drua are 2-0 at home this season, with wins over the NSW Waratahs and Crusaders.
The visitors arrived in Fiji on Wednesday night, acclimatizing with training sessions on Thursday and Friday amid intense humidity and rain.
But the Churchill Park crowd will be another factor altogether, with rugby being the number one sport in Fiji and the local supporters creating a raucous atmosphere in recent home games.
“I don’t think it’s daunting,” Cron told reporters when asked about the crowd. “I think you should embrace it.
“It’s a great crowd that as a rugby player you want to play in front of crowds like that. They’re excited, they’re passionate, they’re amazing people. The fact they’re so excited about the game, we should take energy from that as well.
“So the passion of the crowd is a good thing, rather than a negative. It’s about them embracing it, enjoying it, staying tight on the field and being clear and precise when we do get water breaks, focusing on what we can control.”
On the conditions, Cron added: “Humidity is the difference between here and Perth. It’s actually hotter in Perth than it is here at the moment. It’s the combination of rain and a bit of humidity.
“We’ve got to train for that, be ready for that. We had an opportunity to train yesterday which was good. Captain’s run today, we’ve just got to adapt.”
Cron said the Force had been warmly welcomed into Fiji by the local community, with players regularly stopped for photos on the streets, in cafes and at the team hotel, such is the passion for the sport in the Pacific Island nation.
The Force coach noted the Drua’s fluid and unstructured style and insisted his side needed to stick to their style and gameplan to get ahead.
“You’ve got play structure,” Cron said. “The mistake is trying to play like a Fijian team or the Drua.
“They’re a great offload team. They play a different style of rugby to us. The mistake is you start to try and play like them.
“For us it’s about sticking to our structures and our processes, what we do and how we want to play and controlling the game that way.”
The Force will be without skipper Jeremy Williams (calf) and Will Harris (head injury protocols), with Reed Prinsep and Lopeti Faifua coming into the starting XV. New signing and former Wallabies lock Sam Carter comes in on the reserves for the first time.
On Carter, Cron said: “What he brings is experience, a calm head, a great set piece operator. He’s still early on with us, he hasn’t been here too long.
“He’s done a lot of extra work, extra learning, he’s going well, he’s ready to rumble.”
