Perth Spirit vs Melbourne Rising: NRC live scores

McGillivray is by far the best venue for NRC. It's the only club ground that can accommodate so many people so they can all see the game. Being privately owned (by UWA) there is no problem with councils etc wanting to use it for other purposes and the actual pitch is magnificent.

Yet again TWAS you deliberately miss the point of what I have said to you. Go and have a think about it!

Scott, The Force at no point used more than 2 players who were not in their original squad. Neither were locals. I've looked at the team lists for every game. Kane Koteka made his Force debut in 2015. Anaru Rangi made his debut in 2016. For this tour where they were so undermanned, the following players were named for both games: 1. Cowan 2. Van Wyk 3. Tessman 4. RHP 5. Coleman 6. Stander 7. Hardwick 8. Naisarani 9. Prio 10. Lance 11. Newsome 12. Meakews 13. Rona 14. Verity-Amm 15. Grant 16. Vui 17. Carmichael 18. Short 19. Faulkner That's without considering whether Havili, Brache, Hodgson, Masirewa and Burton who played the 1st or 2nd game back were just dropped for 1 of the 2 games.

Timbo, I think it was Peni that was carded and it was for repeated offside in the def red zone. I think I heard the ref say it was the teams 4th? offside and he had previously warned them. He was very offside so no argument really.

TWAS, I don't know why you bother. When the Force travelled to South Africa and Argentina they didn't have enough fit players to form a 23 man squad. In fact they took two unfit players on the basis that they would probably be able to play the 2nd game. That sounds to me like they had plenty of injury problems. The fact is that the Spirit chose to put their best side on the paddock and a lot of their players had some form of SR experience. The fact is that WA picked up quite a few player in 2017 that now have 1 or part of 1 season of SR (e.g. Naisarani, Verity Amm, Koteka, Rangi etc). The fact is the ARU allowed some Wallabies to play this weekend so they were on the paddock too. Get over it! The Rising could have had as many players with SR experience if they had chosen to to do so but they didn't. However clearly they chose their best available team so I have no idea what your comments are trying to prove. It was a good game that was enjoyed by the spectators. Rather than trying to find fault you might want to make an effort to make a positive statement.

The Force didn't give game time to any local players that were not in their official squad.

Except the Force didn't actually struggle with injuries in 2017 to the level that everybody claims. Outside their officially listed squad, the Force used 2 players. Lewis Carmichael who played 7 games, 5 off the bench. Mitch Short who made 4 bench appearances. 3 of those in the squad played 0 games due to injury. The Rebels on the other hand, used 8 players outside of their officially listed squad. 4 of those players started games, with one starting 10 across the year. In some games the Rebels had 5 of those 8 in the 23. They had 7 players that didn't play a single game due to injury. The Force gave 0 local players outside their squad game time in 2017. Mitchell Short was called in from Randwick, and Lewis Carmichael from Scotland.

That's called Depth, Forced by Injuries earlier in the year. Regulars not Playing: TPN Tessman Morahan DHP RHP Stunder Hodgo Coleman Charmichael Newsome Lauwrens A reserve Prop or 2. Puts a pretty big dent in your premise. If the Spirit are so star-studded, then why didn't Cheika pick them? [Yes, this is a loaded question] Well done to the Rising. Mattocks, Stirzaker, Koribete and Macgregor had outstanding games. Spirit were able to Drop Their Openside out to 10 Hardwick Slotted into 7 and Isi into 6 and the scrum still held firm in defense. I didn't see why Rona was carded. I am hoping it was for repeated team offside because if was for the knock down that was nonsense, it was a fingertip away from a coast to coast intercept..

Mattox, The Rebs #15 had a pretty good game too.

First time I have been able to make it to a Spirit game. Good crowd, good atmosphere and full credit to Perth and Melbourne on playing entertaining rugby. But what I am very concerned about is that the Spirit are going to be the same as Perth Gold were once the Force are folded up. Perth Gold was a team for the Perth elite clubs- the big 4 - Nedlands, Wests, Soaks and Cottesloe plus UWA and Palmyra completes the list of these clubs in Perth's wealthiest suburbs. It was everything that we have accused the Australian Rugby of being the past few months, a team for the elites. Any club that was outside those I have listed were shunned and hence there was vey little support at the Perth Gold games from supporters of these clubs. Now I really hope I am wrong about this but what I observed yesterday was a team playing at a ground smack bang in the middle of Perth's wealthiest suburbs ( I am aware it was at WA Rugby HQ), surrounded by the 6 clubs I have mentioned. The support was from all these clubs there but next to none from other Perth Clubs ( 6 out of 18 clubs). WA Rugby has come so far since the Force have been established and the past 14 months have seen the participation numbers double in juniors and seniors. We are the fastest growing rugby state and we have grown so much that a second seniors competition was formed and now we have northern and southern suburb competitions. At the Force games you see people from all the Perth clubs there supporting the Force. I just did not see that with the Spirit yesterday, I observed WA Rugby poised to return to the pre Force era. Now to the WA folk involved in the game. Am I wrong in my observations? What do you think needs to be done to get the other clubs involved?

Except 10 of that 15 played Super Rugby before 2017. Those that didn't: Richie Arnold - Was fully contracted in 2016, but injured. Billy Meakes - Was only contracted for 2017. Played Aviva in 2016. Chance Peni - Was only contracted for 2017. Played NRL in 2016. Curtis Rona - Was only contracted for 2017. Played NRL in 2016. Isa Naisarani - Was only contracted for 2017 off the back of the 2016 NRC with another team. James Verity-Amm. All of them were fully contracted and therefore likely to play Super Rugby at some point. In fact 20 of the 23 were fully contracted Super Rugby players in 2017. The Rising on the other hand had 4 starters who were not fully contracted in 2017, and another 6 on the bench. Esei Haangana from the Rebels who was in the Under 20s program, not the full time squad but eventually made his Super Rugby debut in 2017 due to injuries is an example of what you were talking about. Fully contracted squad members are not.

I guess you should be grateful the Force didn't make the finals and ruin your "stats"....

Before the finals the Force and Brumbies won and lost the same number of games. However the Brumbies lost an extra game in the finals so their win % is lower.

The Force struggled with injuries during the normal seasons and had to give a lot of local talent Superugby experience before they were ready and that is the reason why so many of Spirit players had Superugby experience. I would thought the Rebels should have been in the same position with their comparable injury toll...they do not have many players in the Wallaby squad so what happened with them? I thought the Spirit got the upper hand in the 2nd part of the 1st half and 1st part of the 2nd half and it started to look like they are building to a big score. However they lost the plot in the scrums after the replacements came on.

Win % = Number of games won divided by number of games played. The finals the Brumbies and Force won exactly the same number of a games and had the same win percentage. However the Brumbies played in the semi-final and lost that game. So their Win % are lower than the Force % as they played and lost and extra game. Maths, what a bugger.

Sorry. Jack Mcgregor. don't know where I got Mannix from.

Both 10's, Jono Lance and Jack Mannix put in very good games. Chieka was there. I hope he took note.

"Their win percentage is higher than any other Australian team during Superugby" Umm, what?

That's not true. Their win percentage was not higher than the Brumbies.

And the Spirit had Super Rugby experience in every position in the starting XV, while the Rising had a very young team playing away. A good win by the Spirit. Hardly dominant.