Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nPotter ranked second for clean breaks (20) in the competition last season and fourth for metres gained (780m), meaning Lancaster has some huge shoes to fill in 2026.<\/p>\n
Force fans are already well versed on Lancaster’s match-winning abilities after watching him score a spectacular Super Point try against them in Perth last year.<\/p>\n
With the Super Point period winding down, Lancaster made a sprint to the corner and somehow touched the ball down after being pushed while doing a diving somersault in the air.<\/p>\n
Force fans were adamant Lancaster didn’t ground the ball properly, but the 90th-minute try was awarded on review and NSW walked away with a famous 22-17 win.<\/p>\n
“The boys have made fun of it a couple of times,” Lancaster said with a laugh when asked about how his new Force teammates still feel about that try.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think too many people here think I scored the try. It doesn’t matter. I’m here now, so I’m doing everything I can to make sure the Force are going to go well this season.”<\/p>\n
Winning over his new teammates has been easy, but Lancaster now faces the challenge of winning over the fans just eight months after breaking their hearts.<\/p>\n
“I think I’ve got a bit of work to do to win it back,” Lancaster said.<\/p>\n
“I think I can hopefully do that through putting in effort week in, week out and doing everything I can to win.”<\/p>\n
Lancaster is at his third Super Rugby club, having spent 2024 with the Melbourne Rebels and 2025 at the Tahs.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old only has a one-year deal at the Force, but he is loving his time in Perth and would love to stay at the club on a longer-term deal.<\/p>\n
Lancaster has moved in with his high school friend Toby Alker, who is an Australian Rules player currently plying his trade with WAFL side East Fremantle.<\/p>\n
“It’s good. It gives me a bit of a change to rugby,” Lancaster said of living with Alker.<\/p>\n
“He can talk about his training. He’ll come over and say he’s done an 11km field session, and I’ll go, ‘Maybe I can stop complaining’.”<\/p>\n
Lancaster ran an 11-second flat 100m during his school days, and he played in the 2021-22 World Rugby Sevens Series after coming through the Australian Sevens pathway.<\/p>\n
His extreme pace has served him well in the 15-a-side game, with his hot form for the Rebels leading to a one-off Wallabies call-up later that year.<\/p>\n
Lancaster would love to add to that one cap, but for now he is focused on helping the Force become a powerhouse, starting with the season opener at home to the Brumbies on February 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Force fans couldn’t help but dislike Darby Lancaster last year, but the one-capped Wallabies flyer hopes it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,48013,11229],"class_list":["post-446574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific","tag-western-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446574","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=446574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}