Tickets are on sale now for the Force’s next home game against the Queensland Reds on Saturday 16 May 5:35pm via Ticketmaster – the Club’s zero2hero Charity Game. Book here.<\/a><\/p>\nBut it was Force other winger, Dylan Pietsch against his
\nformer team, that came away with bragging rights with a brace of tries.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs scored two of their own through playmaker
\nLawson Creighton and reserve front-rower Folau Fainga’a.<\/p>\n
Force fly-half Ben Donaldson added two conversions and two
\npenalties, his second the difference between the sides. Sid Harvey converted
\nboth tries and kicked a penalty for the Waratahs.<\/p>\n
With four games left the Force are in ninth, five points out
\nof the top six.<\/p>\n
They dominated territory and possession, made 708 metres to
\nthe Waratahs 243, 11 clean breaks to the home side’s one and forced the home
\nside to make 287 tackles to just 146 of their own.<\/p>\n
The Force starting pack was 20kg lighter but had the upper
\nhand at the scrum for most of the contest.<\/p>\n
Even after both Force props, Misinale Epenisa and Tom
\nRobertson, were forced off after failing HIA tests on 30 minutes they held
\ntheir own.<\/p>\n
Early Waratahs pressure was well defended by the Force who
\nshowed some creative rugby but were let down by a couple of errors when a break
\nlooked on.<\/p>\n
The Force went ahead on nine minutes when Donaldson slotted
\na penalty.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs first real assault on the Force line finally
\ncame after 30 minutes, helped by consecutive penalties.<\/p>\n
They used tap moves and after concerted pressure Creighton
\ncrossed to put the home side ahead. Sid Harvey converted and three minutes
\nlater added another three points from a penalty.<\/p>\n
After the longest passage of play, 21 phases, Peitsch
\ntwisted, turned and crashed his way over on the half-time siren. Donaldson
\nadded the extras to level the scores at 10-10 at the break.<\/p>\n
The Force opened the second half with plenty of aggression
\non both sides of the ball, camped themselves in the Waratahs half, but were
\nagain let down by errors.<\/p>\n
They finally cracked the Waratahs line, running the ball
\nfrom deep with livewire fullback Mac Grealy producing a beautiful offload for
\nPeitsch to score. Donaldson converted.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs did not make it into the Force 22 metres after
\nthe break until the 69th minute, and that came from a restart after a second
\nDonaldson penalty that stretched his side’s lead to 10 points.<\/p>\n
The Force played a dominating, grinding forward-based game
\nbut with five minutes to go the Waratahs found themselves on the Force line
\nafter a couple of penalties and Fainga’a crashed over. Converted.<\/p>\n
But it was the Force celebrating on the final whistle.<\/p>\n
Cron had named an unchanged squad for the first time this
\nyear, the only change saw Hamish Stewart starting in the centres for his 50th
\nSuper appearance and Bayles Kuenzle moving to the bench.<\/p>\n
But he had to shuffle his pack before the game when
\nbarnstorming No.8 Vaiolini Ekuasi returned home for personal reasons.<\/p>\n
He was replaced at the back of the scrum by Nick Champion de
\nCrespigny, Jeremy Williams moved to blindside flanker, Franco Molina went into
\nthe second row and Lopeti Faifua came onto the bench.<\/p>\n
Kurtley Beale brought up his 183rd Super Rugby cap, moving
\ninto fourth on the all-time list ahead of Liam Messam, when he came from the
\nbench.<\/p>\n
Tickets are on sale now for the Force’s next home game against the Queensland Reds on Saturday 16 May 5:35pm via Ticketmaster – the Club’s zero2hero Charity Game. Book here.<\/a><\/p>\nWestern Force 20<\/p>\n
Tries: Pietsch (39′, 51′)<\/p>\n
Conversions: Donaldson 2\/2<\/p>\n
Penalties: Donaldson 2\/2<\/p>\n
Waratahs 17<\/p>\n
Tries: Creighton (33′), Fainga’a (74′)<\/p>\n
Conversions: Harvey 2\/2<\/p>\n
Penalties: Harvey 1\/1<\/p>\n
10,096 @ Allianz
\nStadium, Sydney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Force are clinging to the hope of a maiden Super Rugby finals appearance after their gutsy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,28899],"class_list":["post-420254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-western-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}