LONG READ ‘There’s an argument that the form Australian team right now is the Western Force’

After their well-earned 31-26 win over the Crusaders, the Western Force and their supporters would be excused this week for thinking back to that missed penalty goal attempt late in the Drua game in Fiji the week before last.

Ben Donaldson had been kicking at 90% leading into the Round 9 clash, but a rough night off the tee in Lautoka saw him return one from four, including the 78^th-minute penalty attempt that he pushed across the face of the posts. Had he hit it straight, the Force would have led by one going into the last minute, but instead went down 24-22.

That scoreline hurts a little more this week, because that late missed penalty has now denied them what would have been a three-game winning streak, after beating the Reds in Brisbane and now the Crusaders in Perth, either side of the Drua near-miss.

Victory there might have had them within spitting distance of the top six and with Australian derbies and a return clash with the Drua back in Perth to come after this weekend’s bye, plenty of confidence of making a charge for a maiden finals campaign.

They may of course still make a run, and I can’t imagine confidence is going to be an issue after the way they overcame the Crusaders, but still, those four points would have been very handy. In a competition of tight margins, you can’t help but lament the really close ones.

After Round 10 last weekend saw three games decided by five points, and one more by seven, it was another rough one for the tipsters and fantasy selectors, underlining why Super Rugby Pacific is in for one hell of a run home to this year’s finals series.

Australian form line shifts west

There’s an argument to be that the form Australian team right now is in fact the Western Force. Current form is obviously different to perceived quality overall, but the Force look to have a decent claim with their two wins and narrow loss in the last three weeks.

In that same time, the Queensland Reds lost heavily at the Hurricanes, lost to the Force at home and beat the Crusaders before last weekend’s bye.

The NSW Waratahs beat the ACT Brumbies in Canberra, lost heavily to the Chiefs, had their second bye, and then took a large chunk of the game to become comfortable in beating Moana Pasifika. The Brumbies lost at home to the ‘Tahs, had their first bye, scraped home against the Highlanders and then lost a second-straight game at home, this time to the Fijian Drua.

After the Crusaders got out to a 19-0 lead in Perth, you might have feared for what was to come for the Force in years gone by, but this was a very different Crusaders team and it’s a very different Force team, too. The composure they showed to score 19 unanswered points of their own to draw level with 25 to play was super impressive, and it was hard to imagine they wouldn’t keep scoring if they could get themselves into position.

They were able to do that, even after Crusaders re-opened a lead, and the Force stormed home over the last 15 minutes to secure the win that keeps them just about within reach of the play-offs. After Round 10, eight points separate the Reds in fifth from the Force in 10th, with a lot of those teams in between set to play each other over the coming weeks.

With road trips to Sydney and Canberra to come, followed by a run of three home games to finish the season, the ball is in the Force’s court as to how well they can finish the year

“Defensively the boys were fighting right to the last minute, didn’t give away any penalties, were really composed and got on ball, got the jackal and ended the game,” noted Force coach Simon Cron about his side’s composure down the stretch.

“There’s a lot of those scenarios those guys train every week to work on and it’s a lot of heart and composure shown, which was critical to be able to get that win because you know as well as we do that the Crusaders will win a lot of games in that last 10 minutes.

“We still had 10 minutes to go when we scored that try and as a coach, you’re just happy for the players that they experience a win like that.”

The Force would probably prefer to be playing this weekend’s Super Round in Christchurch, rather than sitting at home with the bye. But with road trips to Sydney and Canberra to come, followed by a run of three home games to finish the season, the ball is in the Force’s court as to how well they can finish the year.

Are Brumbies regressing, or just at their expected level?

At the end of 10 rounds, only two teams have been inside the top six for all 10 weeks: the Chiefs, who after rising to top spot this weekend have now occupied each of the top six positions, and the ACT Brumbies.

After leading for the first four rounds, the Brumbies spent the next three weeks in third spot, and now the last three weeks in fourth. In the six weeks since they lost top spot, they’ve won just twice in five starts and with a bye in the middle, with two of those losses to the Fijian Drua, who were ninth going into both matches.

But considering the Brumbies were expected to maybe finish just inside the top six, or even narrowly miss out, it feels a bit weird to be overly critical of their slow slide down the standings. If the general consensus over the first month was that they’d significantly over-achieved, then can we really be too down on them for suddenly playing like the mid-table team they were expected to be in 2026?

That’s not to excuse the way they’ve played in the last few weeks. They will admit they have significant work to do to regain their early-season form. The 29 turnovers conceded against the Drua in Canberra on Saturday – 19 of them in the first half – is well below par, and converting only four of 14 entries into the Drua 22 is a long way from their own benchmarks.

The Hurricanes this weekend looms as their toughest test on an otherwise helpful run home, with the three other Australian sides and Moana Pasifika to come over their remaining five games.

It’s up to them how they answer the question from here. Do they want to finish the year as over-achievers, or fade out into the mid-table mess that is emerging?

Waratahs winning, but current error rates not sustainable

Over the last four games, New South Wales have averaged 17.3 turnovers conceded, and 26.3 missed tackles per game. Those numbers don’t paint the complete picture of everything in need of attention, or everything being worked on in the background, but they are indicative of their current form line.

The good news is they have won two of those four games, including against the Brumbies in Canberra, one of – if not their best – performance of the season, and the one game in the last month to bring those averages down from where they otherwise might have been.

But they surely can’t keep handing over possession or conceding gain-line ground at this current rate.

Again on Friday, some of the Waratahs players’ decision-making under pressure was simply not good enough, with passes being pushed, offloads being thrown to no-one and numerous other instances where just taking a tackle and resetting is going to be the best decision every day of the week. Especially game days.

Moana were always going to be hard to handle, given the news of their impending demise last week, but the Waratahs kept them in the contest longer than they otherwise would have been simply because of the error rate.

Incredibly, NSW are only two points behind the Crusaders in sixth and three behind the Reds in fifth, and their record is not too dissimilar to either side.

They can force their way into finals contention mathematically, but from a pure rugby sense, they will need to be playing a lot better than they are currently to get there.