Western Force face Tonga with ambitious targets in mind

Western Force are setting an ambitious target in their quest to play fast-paced rugby.

The average ball-in-play stat in Super Rugby is 33 minutes, which makes it highly ambitious of the Western Force’s World Series Rugby coach Tim Sampson to set his goal at 40 minutes.

It’s not likely he will achieve that tomorrow against Tonga in the second WSR match at nib Stadium but after getting up to 38 minutes last week in the win over Fiji, it looks achievable, particularly if the Force make better use of the provisional laws which allow them to throw into a lineout the moment their line is formed.

Even a 40-minute figure would mean the ball would be in play only one minute in every two, but in a game as exacting as professional rugby, that’s still a clattering pace.

The world record stands at 42 minutes, but not to the men. It was achieved in a women’s World Cup match. Asked whether his players are fit enough to sustain such a pace, Sampson admitted that they were not there yet.

“I’d be lying if I said we were there right now because of the staggered arrival of players in Perth. But by the end of WSR, I’d like to think they would be fit enough,” he said.

The Force arrivals continue, with prop Cameron Orr arriving this week from his commitments while star signing, All Black lock Jeremy Thrust, will not land in Perth for another three weeks, hopefully in time for the June 23 clash with the Crusaders.

Sampson has made two changes to the side that downed Fiji 24-14, with Perth local Clay Uyen taking over at fullback from Peter Grant, who took a heavy head knock last week, while Alifeliti Kaiut’u coming in to replace Heath Tessmann.

Tongan head coach, legendary former Wallabies No 8 Toutai Kefu, has not made it to Perth for this match but all indications are that the Tonga A side provide the basis of the visiting team.

“All Tongan teams prefer a confrontational style of play,” Sampson said. “They like to rumble up the middle of the park with their forwards and then run their backline plays off that.”

There was no way this game could hope to match the opening-night crowd of just under 20,000 last week, but ticket sales point to a crowd of 12,000, which is still likely to be the biggest rugby audience in the country this weekend.