Western Force vice-captain Michael Wells says the team needs to stick to their DNA to get back to winning ways following an underwhelming start to the Super Rugby Pacific season.
The Force have suffered back-to-back losses to the Melbourne Rebels and Hurricanes to open the campaign, although they seemed on track for victory against the former, leading 34-19 in the second half before the hosts’ comeback.
Next up, the Force take on the ACT Brumbies in Canberra from 11:35am AWST Saturday in Round 3.
“It’s not panic stations and it’s not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it is the fact we’re sitting right at the bottom of the table,” said Wells, who scored the Force’s fourth try against the Rebels in an edge-to-edge team move.
“We need to change course and be better. We have faith in what we’re doing, what the coaches have installed, our processes, our systems, our players - we need to execute it better, then defensively we need to stick to our process.
“It’s on us. We’re fully responsible for what we’re doing. It’s not that other teams are blowing us off the park.
“It’s that we’re not putting out performances that we’re happy with. It’s about us going back to what we need to do and our DNA. And we need to do that better.”
Wells pointed to his side giving up 92 points across their opening two games, whilst referencing positives in attack.
“We’ve got to be able sustain pressure because when we played attack, we ran them off their feet,” 30-year-old Wells said.
“We went sideline to sideline. Our skills were looking good. As Cronny said, we thought we scored some good tries. We thought we handed them a lot of points through our poor execution, poor decision making. That’s been the review.
“Looking at the defensive scoreboard for the last two games, we’ve conceded 90-something points. It’s about our system, are we doing it right? We’re overfolding certain situations, we’re not folding enough in other situations. It’s guys doing their job more consistently and better.
“It’s just being comfortable with where we are and doing that much; it’s urgency without desperation.”
The Force flew to Sydney after Friday’s loss in Melbourne and will travel down to Canberra on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Brumbies.
The Sydney-born forward, who has more than 100 Super Rugby caps to his name, refused to use travel as an excuse for last week’s defeat.
“At the end of the day we go onto a field that is the same dimensions and the same between white lines,” he said.
“The fact we didn’t perform away from home, it’s about individual players and the team going we’re better than that, we just have to prove it. It’s nothing to do with the travel.
“Guys are still getting meals a day, still getting a bed, they’re sleeping, to say something is wrong with the travel would be an excuse.”
Wells said the Force were well aware of the Brumbies’ threats ahead of Saturday’s game.
“I think the Brumbies speak for themselves in terms of their forward pack,” he said. “It’s set piece, lineout maul, scrum and we look at the last couple of weeks our scrum has had a tough time. That’s stuff we’re working on.
“If you look out wide, Corey Toole if he gets space, he’s gone. It’s being aware of their threats but knowing if we play our game and stick to our processes, we’re reasonably confident we can handle everything that others teams throw at us.
“We’ve got to keep to our process for 80 minutes, we can’t have 10 here or 10 there, and allow teams to score 40 points against. It puts our attack under too much pressure, having to score 40-50 points per game.”
