Scrappy breakdowns concern Force
The Western Force completed their pre-season campaign with a 38-19 win over the Asia Pacific Dragons in Perth on Saturday, leaving them unbeaten at the start of 2015.
Having beaten the Brumbies 31-21 in Perth last Friday, the confidence in the camp must be sky-high.
However, coach Michael Foley was not entirely happy – suggesting the team's breakdowns need some work ahead of their start to the season proper.
They face the Waratahs in Sydney on Sunday, February 15, in the tournament's opening round.
"I thought we played some really good rugby up front," Foley said.
"Again a lot of the systems we've been working on were evident.
"There was a real break in momentum in the middle of the game, the opposition got a little momentum and they did quite well in the breakdown.
"I thought we were a little bit untidy in that area but it was good to see the guys come on and finish off strongly.
"There were things in that game that we could still control that maybe we didn't do well enough and I think the breakdown stands out for me as one.
"We were scrappy in that area and we allowed them to create messy ball for us.
"As I've said over the past couple of weeks, there's some things that will get better and better.
"We've got to persevere; the fact that we don't get all the fruits of our labour initially, we shouldn't go away from it because we need to know that we can get out there and score more tries and one of the positive things of the last two weeks is we have done that."
The Force led at every stage, leading 26-7 at half-time through four tries to Luke Morahan, Chris Alcock, Marcel Brache and Pek Cowan.
In what was an end-to-end, physical encounter the visitors clawed their way back in the second term, before the home side closed out the match with two tries in the final 20 minutes to run out 19-point victors.
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