Waratahs need to beat Highlanders after Force loss
Updated ,first published
Waratahs coach Dan McKellar admitted his side were being “bullied” following the Force’s 20-17 win in Sydney.
While the Force keep their hopes of reaching the finals alive, the Waratahs now face a tough journey to Dunedin as they know they must beat the Highlanders to have any chance of finishing in the top six.
If the Super Round in Christchurch was a three-day, sold-out rugby festival that will live long in the memory, the Force’s win over the Waratahs was the disappointing after-party in Sydney.
A tough showdown between two former NSW Origin teammates Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Zac Lomax had been promised. Ferrari was ready and stepping up against the Australian muscle car and 10,096 fans had come to see it. Ultimately, both men were underutilized. Suaalii in particular only managed three carries in the entire game. The Waratahs managed to break a line throughout the entire match.
McKellar was asked how he could get Suaalii more involved in the attack and his answer was simple.
“Stop making 300 tackles… no one is touching the ball and when you have 32 per cent space, all you do is defend and then try to get out your end so you get crushed to death and bullied in and around the collapse,” the coach said.
“I can’t just push a button and say Su (Suaalii), here’s the field, you must deserve it.”
If right winger Lomax is still grabbing the majority of the headlines for the Force, it was Dylan Pietsch who provided the real story of this game, scoring two tries in an outstanding performance. Pietsch has established himself as a potential Wallabies starter ahead of the July Tests, scoring four tries in his last three matches.
The Waratahs almost stole the game with a 74th-minute try from hooker Folau Faingaa, but the ensuing Teddy Wilson strike ended that brief little hope.
McKellar ultimately said his team was bullied by the breakdown and their late comeback came too late.
“We got bullied in and around the dugout, it was both offensive and defensive, and they came in here with a pretty smooth plan and it worked,” McKellar said. “It’s disappointing we didn’t start punching until we were down 10 points.”
Only three points were scored in the first 30 minutes of the match, thanks to Ben Donaldson’s penalty. The Waratahs have admirably allowed young players to attend their home games for free this season, but even they may feel a little changed by the action on the pitch. Both teams were unable to take possession of the ball and take advantage of offensive opportunities.
Before the game the Waratahs were holding a record of just 27 per cent spam attempts from 22 tries, making them the most offensively inefficient team in Super Rugby. After 12 minutes, the Waratahs had an early opportunity to take a penalty but turned it down. The ball was eventually turned over by Force hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa.
The Waratahs were eventually rewarded for a long spell near the Force try line with a five-eighth Lawson Creighton try. After 33 long and error-filled minutes, the point guard turned and thwarted Power’s tackle attempts to finally put his team on the scoreboard. Sid Harvey added a penalty to his earlier conversion to extend his lead.
Force winger Dylan Pietsch scored his third try in three games just before half-time and managed to break through the Waratahs defense to level the game at 10 after 21 phases of patient play from the visitors.
Pietsch spent three seasons with the Waratahs, but established himself as an elite winger in his final two years in Perth. Ten minutes into the second half Pietsch scored his second try after a superb offload from full-back Mac Grealy.
The Waratahs were forced to absorb wave after wave of Power pressure throughout the second half. Donaldson’s penalty increased the Force’s lead to 10 points with 12 minutes left.
With five minutes left in the game on their first visit, crossing the Power’s 22-metre line, the Waratahs scored a converted try through Fainga’a to give them an unlikely chance of victory, but it was too late, too late for the Power to hold on.
McKellar admitted after the match that he had not calculated his side’s chances of reaching the final, which is looking increasingly unlikely.
“I haven’t looked at the stairs and I haven’t even thought about it, but I know when we’re at our best, like we’ve shown at times, we can beat anyone,” McKellar said.
“But the gap between our best and our not-the-best is huge at the moment and we’re having inconsistencies in and around performance at this point. It’s frustrating, we need to look at what we’re doing.”
When asked what his biggest disappointment with his team was, McKellar refused to share it.
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