Western Force have 10 minutes to get rid of the rust

All the Australian Super Rugby teams have been rusty after three months, but what about the Western Force after three years?

Western Force coach Tim Sampson is confident in the team’s set pieces. Picture: Getty Images

Rustiness has been evident in all four Australian teams that have played in the Super Rugby AU competition, and they have been out of waction for only three months.

Consider then how the Western Force will be approaching their match against the Waratahs, not having played a game of this standard in three years.

The last time the Force played a Super Rugby match, on July 15, 2017, they humiliated the Tahs 40-11 in Perth, their captain Matt Hodgson kicking the final conversion that sent the Perth side off into the unknown after they had been culled from the competition by Rugby Australia.

The uncertainty didn’t last long, with Andrew Forrest funding them into a new Global Rapid Rugby competition, supplemented by outings in the National Rugby Championship. Over the past three years, the Force have played some highly respectable opponents, but the mere fact they have prepared for their return by strengthening the side with a cluster of Wallabies indicates that they know themselves it’s about to get very real.

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Still, coach Tim Sampson has cut his team what he believes is a fair measure of slack for any rust they might feel. Five minutes of it. Ten minutes, max.

“You’d like to think you could go out and execute a pretty good game right from the outset,” Sampson said. “Sure, there will be some rustiness, but we will need to get rid of that in the first 5-10 minutes, just as long as it doesn’t go too far into the game.”

One area he hopes to get right from the get-go, the scrum. He noted a number of things about the Tahs from their narrow 32-26 loss to Queensland – the size and athleticism of their back three, the career-best form of five-eighth Will Harrison, the abrasiveness of their pack.

But he also noted that their set piece was monstered by Taniela Tupou and the rest of the Queensland forwards, to the point where referee Nic Berry must have been on the brink of awarding the Reds a penalty try. He did, however, send 19-year-old NSW loosehead Angus Bell to the sin bin for conceding repeated scrum infringements.

“We are very comfortable with our scrum,” was all that Sampson would say about the set-piece battle. But why wouldn’t he feel that way, given that Kieran Longbottom and Greg Holmes will be his likely propping combination?

Young Waratahs prop Angus Bell had a great learning experience against the Reds. Picture: Getty Images

NSW defence coach Jason Gilmore knows Bell well, having coached him in last year’s Australian Under-20 side. “It was a great learning for him, coming up against the Wallabies tighthead. Taniela is a really powerful guy so it was always going to be a really hard day at the office for Angus.

“But having been involved with Angus for the last 12 months, he is a guy who is very mature for his age. I don’t think it will affect him at all in terms of his confidence.

“I think he will learn from it. He will review his game hard and what a better way to learn as a 19-year-old than to come up against the Wallabies tighthead.”

It’s little short of amazing that a teenage player is actually packing down in the front-row for the Waratahs. Usually, a prop doesn’t even come into his own until he reaches his mid-20s, so Bell’s progress has to be kept in perspective. But as coach of the Under-20s, Gilmore believes that applies to all the players from that extraordinarily successful side.

“I think the biggest thing this year is that the coaches have backed the guys and left them in position and given them confidence. Will Harrison is a classic … the Waratahs weren’t so successful earlier in the year and it would have been easy to go to Kurtley Beale at five-eighth.

“But Rob (Penney, the NSW coach) kept his faith and that performance on Friday night, Will would not have achieved that if he didn’t have that confidence and belief from the coaching staff.”

In other news, former Wallabies flanker Liam Gill and Melbourne Rebels hooker Anaru Rangi are about to sign with the Japanese Top League side previously coached by Penney, the NTT Shining Arcs.