The Western Force will unveil two starting debutants for their historic semi-final clash against the Waratahs as they chase a maiden Super W final appearance.<\/p>\n
The Force will host their first-ever semi-final at HBF Park on Saturday as part of a double-header clash with the Wallabies but will be without two key stars.<\/p>\n
Front-rower and former Wallaroo Alapeta Ngauamo and midfielder and current Wallaroo Cecilia Smith are both unavailable due to suspension following cards against the bonus-point win over the Brumbies.<\/p>\n
Local Cottesloe product Zoe Elliott and New Zealand touch rugby international Atawhai Hotene will instead make starting debuts with Hotene scoring after coming off the bench agaisnt the Brumbies.<\/p>\n
The Force will still boast plenty of experience with all-time most-capped Wallaroo Pia Tapsel taking her place in the second row while four-time Super Rugby champion and ex-Waratah Sera Naiqama is hoping to take down her former side.<\/p>\n
In June, the Force became the first-ever Australian side to take down the Waratahs and enter the finals on a club record three-win streak, having swept all other Australian sides this season.<\/p>\n
Should the Force claim their first-ever finals victory, a selection squeeze will be on with Ngauamo and Smith both set to return having served their suspension.<\/p>\n
Kick-off for Saturday\u2019s game at HBF Park is 2pm WST, with gates opening at 1:45pm.<\/p>\n
Western Force semifinal team<\/p>\n
Starting XV<\/p>\n
Allana Sikimeti, Hera Barb Malcolm Heke, Zoe Elliott*, Sera Naiqama, Michaela Leonard (vc), Pia Tapsell, Anneka Stephens, Seina Saito, Samantha Wood (cc), Grace Freeman, Aiysha Wigley, Atawhai Hotene*, Trilleen Pomare, Adi Vani Buleki, Nicole Ledington.<\/p>\n
Reserves<\/p>\n
Jiowana Sauto, Keira MacAskill, Hannah Palelei, Yuna Sato, Taylor Waterson, Ai Dickson, Brooklyn Teki Joyce, Halley Derera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Force will unveil two starting debutants for their historic semi-final clash against the Waratahs as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,2633,588,85,11229],"class_list":["post-801465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-union","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-western-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801465","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=801465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}