Super Rugby Pacific: Western Force coach Simon Cron says no motivation needed for final game of season

Western Force coach Simon Cron has dismissed any notion their final Super Rugby Pacific game of the season being a dead rubber despite the finals hopes having bitten the dust.

After last week’s loss to Fijian Drua slammed the door shut on their finals hopes, an injury-afflicted Force regain a bevy of starters for Saturday evening’s clash against the Waratahs at HBF Park.

And with the wooden spoon still in play and inter-state pride on the line for the Force, there is plenty at stake heading into the game.

While Cron was not focusing too much on the result and insisted his focus was on the performance, he said no motivation was needed for his players despite their finals hopes ending.

“It’s extremely disappointing, and you can see it in the faces of everybody in the organization.

“We started really well, and in terms of petering out, there’s definitely a few things we can fix in a lot of that season.

“Hopefully that will help us be stronger and continuing to build depth in key positions is a big part of that. It’s what we’ve got to keep driving forward to do.

“Last game is critical for us; we’ve got the Sea of Blue, we’ve got supporters, it’s our home, our house: you can’t give much more motivation than that.

“I don’t think you should have to ‘g’ a player up.”

Carlo Tizzano, Nic White, Harry Potter, Ben Donaldson, Dylan Pietsch, Nick Champion de Crespigny and Hamish Stewart are all back for the Force while Fatongia Paea gets a debut at loosehead prop.

“We’ve got seven guys coming back into the squad this week...they want to play rugby, we want them to play rugby,” Cron said.

“Their rugby brains are really important for us to make good decisions under pressure, and that’s big part of experience.”

Tizzano has signed a new deal with the Force to take him through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup and Cron said he was excited to have the star flanker back on board.

“We’ve got a number of guys doing that at the moment. Going forward, the most important thing for us is maintaining our core.

“One was developing the core players, and now it’s maintaining and keeping them for the next year.

“There’s been a lot of change in the last two years as we start to fight our way back in and he’s a big part of that core, so that’s awesome for him to re-sign.”