Watch every second of Super Rugby AUS live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nWith the infamous NRC \u2018Toast Rack\u2019 still sitting in Force HQ, the WA franchise is now prime to add another domestic trophy to the cabinet.<\/p>\n
Fresh off their bonus-point away win over the Waratahs in Round 1, the Force sit atop the Super Rugby AUS ladder and host their remaining two round-robin fixtures at Tompkins Park – home of Palmyra Rugby Club.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an ideal start to the tournament and one Max Burey – the inaugural Super Rugby AUS Player of the Week – hopes to put to good use.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the old man must pick that award,\u201d Burey joked with reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s always nice to get a bit of recognition, but at the end of the day, I was just really happy with the team’s performance. A lot of boys sort of got recognition off that, and it was just real positive for us as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Waratahs] were very aggressive with their line speed\u2026 we probably weren’t as game ready as maybe the other guys with not as much club and stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut once we got into it, we just really wanted to play territory, keep the forwards fresh, because we know the Tahs are quite good at set-piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came out [in the] second half really firing, and got the jump on them there, which was good. We know it’s a three-week tournament, so it’s always important to have a good start.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was far from perfect Force performance with their go-forward regularly stifled by the Waratahs\u2019 strong scrum base.<\/p>\n
However, Burey expects his side to come out stronger against an imposing Brumbies\u2019 set piece this weekend after crucial time in the legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what this competition’s about,\u201d Burey added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s giving boys more footy, getting them in the fire, and seeing how we deal with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt halftime we made some good adjustments\u2026 it wasn’t just me and Swain, it was all the boys. Everyone’s got to take it on board and action it. We did that, so it came out quite well in that second half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to play every minute. I love being in at ten, so it’s good to get some more footy within the Force system, I’m very happy now to be getting an extra run.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brumbies will offer a lot of challenges, with Australia U20 stars Lington Ieli, Toby Macpherson and Shane Wilcox complimented by the likes of Wallabies fetcher Luke Reimer and Australia A regular Rhys Van Nek.<\/p>\n
Burey is expecting an elevated ACT performance following the Brumbies’ Round 1 loss to Queensland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[The] Brumbies are a very good challenge, they’re going to be quite a step up,\u201d Burey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re a really good team, well drilled, have been for years. No matter who plays or in that jersey, they’re really good at the breakdown. They’re really physical.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it’s just about making sure we fight fire with fire a little bit around the physicality and being ready for it, but still focusing on what makes us and our DNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we did that quite well [against the Waratahs], and hopefully on the weekend we can get a decent crowd and a bit of emotional energy around it and take it to the Brums.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Force may not have broken their Super Rugby Pacific finals duck yet – but on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,69535,11229],"class_list":["post-151594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-aus","tag-western-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}