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Force on receiving end of ugly Blues' Super thrashing
By AAP
A woeful Western Force have copped a Super Rugby Pacific thrashing, held try-less in a 50-3 belting by the Blues at Eden Park.
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Bashed up front by a powerful Blues pack on Friday evening, the bottom-ranked Force were never in the contest as they slumped to their heaviest defeat of the season.
It was the seventh time in the past three seasons the Force have been beaten by 35 points or more, and their biggest-ever loss against the Blues.
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The Force were simply blown away by the Blues in Auckland. (Andrew Cornaga/AAP PHOTOS)
Halfback Taufa Funaki nabbed a double for the Blues but it was their forwards that got the job done, overpowering the Force on their way to four of their side’s eight tries.
In hindsight, the Force would surely regret taking a penalty goal shortly before the half-hour while trailing 14-0 instead of pressing on in search of a try in a rare venture deep into Blues’ territory.
Five-eighth Ben Donaldson knocked over the goal and the Blues gathered their own restart, with second-rower Laghlan McWhannell crossing to make it 21-3 seconds later in a moment that seemed to drain the fight out of the Force.
If that didn’t end their chances, silky interplay between brothers Akira and Rieko Ioane that ended with a try for Funaki to give the Blues a 28-3 lead at halftime surely did.
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The Blues’ scrum forced penalties at will and produced the match’s first try for Ofa Tu’ungafasi, with hooker Ricky Riccitelli crossing off the back of a rolling maul to make it 14-0.
Any thought of a second-half fightback was quickly snuffed out when No.8 Hoskins Sotutu powered over on 43 minutes, before centre Corey Evans picked off a loose Force pass and crossed untouched soon after in one of the Australian side’s more embarrassing moments.
Soft defending was a theme throughout, the Force missing a whopping 28 tackles compared with the Blues’ six.
That was a proper spanking. Hoskins has got some skills, and stoked to see Caleb Clarke playing great footy again.
Awful lot of kicking, Force should have had a go with ball in hand; they were getting a hiding and just kicked it back for the Blues to get field position bwfore running it at them.
I thought the kicking was getting pretty tedious in about the first quarter of an hour and I was glad when the Blues actually started using the ball. Looked like the Force didn’t have any ideas outside of kicking.