{"id":479056,"date":"2026-02-14T07:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479056\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T07:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:59:09","slug":"western-force-hunt-for-strong-start-against-act-brumbies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479056\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Force hunt for strong start against ACT Brumbies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The Western Force and ACT Brumbies will be hunting for opening round victories as they face off at HBF Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The Force are gunning for their maiden finals appearances after a late collapse saw them narrowly miss out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stan.com.au\/watch\/sport\/rugby\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">New recruits Nathan Hastie, George Bridge and Franco Molina are among the starters set for their club debut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Meanwhile, it&#8217;s a new era of sorts for the Brumbies after the departure of a host of Test players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Kadin Pritchard will make his starting debut at outside centre, with two further set for their debuts off the bench.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">FOLLOW ALL THE ACTION IN THE LIVE BLOG BELOW OR THE <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugby.com.au\/match-centre\/205\/2026\/949212\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">MATCH CENTRE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>PRE GAME &#8211; WELCOME<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Welcome to Rugby.com.au&#8217;s coverage of the Western Force-ACT Brumbies match at HBF Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">It&#8217;s been a scrappy round of Rugby, which concludes with two teams who enter the season with plenty of intrigue around their squads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Keep an eye on Kadin Pritchard for the Brumbies on starting debut, while the inclusion of Franco Molina adds serious quality to the Force pack.<\/p>\n<p>WESTERN FORCE v ACT BRUMBIES TEAMS<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">FORCE (1-15):\u00a0Tom Robertson, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Harry Johnson-Holmes, Jeremy Williams (c), Franco Molina, Vaiolini Ekuasi, Carlo Tizzano, Nick Champion de Crespigny, Nathan Hastie, Ben Donaldson, Bayley Kuenzle, Hamish Stewart, George Bridge, Divad Palu, Mac Grealy<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Replacements:\u00a0Leonel Oviedo, Sef Fa&#8217;agase, Misinale Epenisa, Darcy Swain, Will Harris, Henry Robertson, Max Burey, Kurtley Beale<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">BRUMBIES (1-15):\u00a0James Slipper, Billy Pollard, Rhys van Nek, Lachie Shaw, Cadeyrn Neville, Rob Valetini, Rory Scott, Charlie Cale, Ryan Lonergan (c), Declan Meredith, Corey Toole, David Feliuai, Kadin Pritchard, Ollie Sapsford, Andy Muirhead<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Replacements:\u00a0Liam Bowron, Blake Schoupp, Tevita Alatini, Toby Macpherson, Luke Reimer, Klayton Thorn, Tane Edmed, Hudson Creighton<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Referee:\u00a0Jordan Way<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Assistant Referees:\u00a0Damon Murphy, Jeremy Markey<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">TMO:\u00a0James Leckie<\/p>\n<p>HOW TO WATCH WESTERN FORCE v ACT BRUMBIES<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The Force&#8217;s clash with the Brumbies will be shown LIVE on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Coverage will be live and ad-free on Stan Sport, slated to start at 7:00 pm with kickoff expected at 7:35 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Force and ACT Brumbies will be hunting for opening round victories as they face off at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[58864,64,63,760,85,48013,11229],"class_list":{"0":"post-479056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-act-brumbies","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-super-rugby-pacific","14":"tag-western-force"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479056","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=479056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}