Former NRL player Curtis Rona has been named to be part of the Western Force Brisbane Tens squads alongside Wallaby duo Tatafu Polota-Nau and Luke Morahan while club legend Matt Hodgson also joins the team.
Rona will turn out for the Force for the first time at the Brisbane tournament after a short but successful NRL career which saw him score 41 tries in 57 appearances for the North Queensland Cowboys and Canterbury Bulldogs.
One man who won’t be joining Rona in Brisbane is Dave Wessels, with skills coach Kevin Foote to take over the head coaching role at the tournament.
“Kevin Foote will be the coach at the tournament, with the rest of the coaching staff supporting him,” Wessels said. “He’s had some experience in the tens format of the game and we feel he is the appropriate coach to lead the team and the rest of the staff will all be supporting him.”
“It’s very exciting, a new format of the game, we’ve seen how successful it’s been for a sport like cricket trying different forms, so we’re thrilled to be involved with it,” he said.
“I think we have a really good balance in the squad; a guy like ‘Hodgo’ (Matt Hodgson) over the ball in unstructured play with so much space and having guys like Luke Morahan, Curtis Rona and Chance Peni outside of them with pace it should be entertaining to watch.”
The Force will be without captain Ben McCalman who has opted to skip the tournament to assist his preparation for the upcoming Super Rugby season, while star fullback and Wallabies regular, Dane Haylett-Petty, is still working his way back to full fitness and will also miss the tournament.
Full Western Force squad for Brisbane Tens
Richard Arnold, Marcel Brache, Robert Coleman, Mees Erasmus, Peter Grant, Richard Hardwick, Ross Haylett-Petty, Matt Hodgson, Onehunga Kaufusi, Kane Koteka, Ryan Louwrens, Semisi Masiwera, Luke Morahan, Isireli Naisarani, Alex Newsome, Chance Peni, Matthew Philip, Tatafu Polota-Nau, Ian Prior, Anaru Rangi, Curtis Rona, Michael Ruru, Brynard Stander, Heath Tessmann, James Verity-Amm, Shambeckler Vui
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