Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Four Wallabies head west as part of exciting Force squad for 2025

Australia's Dylan Pietsch competing with England's Marcus Smith (left) during the Autumn Nations Series 2025 match between England and Australia at Allianz Stadium on November 09, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Andrew Kearns - CameraSport via Getty Images)

The Western Force have added a lot of quality to their ranks ahead of next year’s Super Rugby Pacific season, with a quartet of Wallabies committing to the club, as well as other players who seem more than ready to do a job for the Perth-based outfit.

ADVERTISEMENT

Wallabies Dylan Pietsch, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Harry Johnson-Holmes and Darcy Swain have all made the move out west, and internationally capped Nic Dolly and Matt Proctor will also ply their trade in Western Australia.

Backrowers Nick Champion de Crespigny and Vaiolini Ekuasi have also put pen to paper, with Ekuasi coming off another strong season with Auckland in New Zealand’s NPC. Coach Simon Cron said in a statement earlier this year that Ekuasi will play a “street fighter” role.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

Winger Mac Grealy has made the move from the Queensland Reds to the Force in a move that should intrigue fans. Grealy scored two tries against Warren Gatland’s Wales in a July exhibition fixture – the Downlands College graduate will be eager to embrace this chance.

Experienced midfielder Sio Tomkinson and Australia U20s representative Divad Palu have also signed on for the 2025 season. Academy trio Ronan Leahy, Dough Phillipson and Mitch Watts have also been included in the top squad.

Tiaan Tauakipulu will also look to make moves in 2025 on the back of a first-time call-up to the Australia XV representative side. Kane Koteka and Wallabies prop Tom Robertson are also back with the Force for the upcoming campaign.

“The biggest focus was making sure the people we brought into our environment were going to add value and make a positive impact both on and off the field,” coach Simon Cron said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The people we have targeted do that and have chosen to join us, so we are really looking forward to welcoming them to Western Australia.

Related

“… One of our key strategic goals has been to create some positional depth,” he added.

“Last year, tactically one of our major areas of concern was our ability to bring people off the bench to add firepower in the back-end of games which helps maintain momentum. We’re a lot closer to the finished product there than we have been.

“In South Africa, we tried our hardest to get as many of our Super Rugby team members over there, like Darcy Swain coming over early or Tom Robertson flying in from Wallabies camp, to help that depth and get games into those players.”

There is genuine international quality among the Force’s ranks now, and as coach Cron acknowledged, it wasn’t always that way. The quartet of Wallabies who have signed with bring some X-Factor to a side that already boasted talented options.

ADVERTISEMENT

Nic White and Ben Donaldson were already at the Force, and Carlo Tizzano – who has enjoyed a breakout international season in 2024 – will also lead the way on the defensive side of the ball again. Tizzano led the competition for tackles made in 2024, and by quite some distance too.

“We’ve got more players stepping up to become Wallabies, as well as representing the Australia XV,” Cron explained. “Initially we had limited exposure and representation in those key representative teams so it’s great to see our players driving themselves forward.”

Western Force squad for 2025

Max Burey

Sam Carter

Nick Champion de Crespigny

Ryan Coxon

Nic Dolly

Ben Donaldson

Vaiolini Ekuasi

Lopeti Faifua

Issak Fines-Leleiwasa

Mac Grealy

Will Harris

Harry Hoopert

Tom Horton

Harry Johnson-Holmes

Kane Koteka*

Bayley Kuenzle

Ronan Leahy

Atunaisa Moli

Brandon Paenga-Amosa

Divad Palu

Reesjan Pasitoa*

Dylan Pietsch

Marley Pearce*

Doug Philipson

George Poolman

Harry Potter

Reed Prinsep

Matt Proctor

Henry Robertson

Tom Robertson

Papillon Sevele

Hamish Stewart

Darcy Swain

Tiaan Tauakipulu

Josh Thompson

Carlo Tizzano*

Patelesio Tomkinson

Mitch Watts

Nic White

Jeremy Williams

*WA local

Louis Rees-Zammit joins Jim Hamilton for the latest episode of Walk the Talk to discuss his move to the NFL. Watch now on RugbyPass TV

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

286 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Why Freddy Douglas has played for Scotland before Edinburgh Why Freddy Douglas has played for Scotland before Edinburgh
Search