{"id":510925,"date":"2026-03-01T02:48:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510925\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T02:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T02:48:16","slug":"force-first-five-highlights-composure-in-victory-over-moana-pasifika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/510925\/","title":{"rendered":"Force first-five highlights ‘composure’ in victory over Moana Pasifika"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

19-Test Wallabies first-five Ben Donaldson<\/a> has pinpointed where his side improved the most in their victory over Moana Pasifika, after they started with two defeats in the Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

Simon Cron\u2019s side started their three-week New Zealand<\/a> road trip with a convincing victory, although a late surge from Tana Umaga\u2019s side meant the team from Perth came away with four points, not five.<\/p>\n

Navigation Homes Stadium in Pukekohe was the host of the Force\u2019s first victory in New Zealand since Round ten in 2022, 1,375 days ago.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Taylah Johnson from Sky Sport after the match, Donaldson said he was pleased with his side\u2019s performance in Pukekohe.<\/p>\n

\u201dYeah, obviously a lot better tonight. It\u2019s always tough, when you do the whole preseason and come out two games at home and two losses, which is really disappointing,\u201d Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut like you said, I\u2019m just trying to enjoy myself, play freely and lead this team as best I can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd after tonight, it\u2019s a much better feeling, and it should be good to have a beer with the boys in the sheds.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the difference between the first two losses and then their first victory, the Wallabies\u2019 first-five explained they had much better \u201ccomposure\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were just really composed, like in the past few games, we were a bit frantic, trying to play a bit too much from our end.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a big focus this week with our kick strategy, I thought we kicked a lot better this week. Controlled the momentum a bit a bit better, and then our discipline was a bit better as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou give these big teams momentum and discipline into your heart, it\u2019s hard to stop them. So I thought for the most part, we were pretty good. Probably just in the last 10 minutes we weren\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Team Form <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last 5 Games<\/p>\n

-174<\/p>\n

Points Difference<\/p>\n

-78<\/p>\n

1\/5<\/p>\n

Race To 10 Points<\/p>\n

2\/5<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Just prior to the opening whistle on Friday night, Donaldson was getting ready to take the field before the doctor came rushing into the changing room.<\/p>\n

The game doctor told Donaldson he needed to pass an HIA test to be able to play the game as his mouthguard had notified the doctors of a possible head injury.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies first-five explained it was a bit of a weird beginning to the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a bit of a weird one. I didn\u2019t feel anything. I had it in the warm up, and went back into the change room, put my jersey on, and the doctor came in freaking out,\u201d Donaldson told Sky Sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently it was pinging so maybe it was in one of the tackles we did on the pads at the end,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 but didn\u2019t feel anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I knew I was fine, just had to pass the test and yeah it was a bit of a chaotic couple of minutes, but I was just happy to get out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"19-Test Wallabies first-five Ben Donaldson has pinpointed where his side improved the most in their victory over Moana…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-510925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510925","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=510925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}