How low can the Force sink?

After suffering their fourth loss in a row to the Reds in Brisbane last night, it appears the Force have hit rock bottom and started to dig. John Mitchell’s men looked to have no gameplan, no tactics and no idea what they were even doing at Suncorp Stadium in the first place.

Lance Free, over at GreenAndGoldRugby.com, wondered if that was even the real Force who turned up: “Did their bus actually arrive at Suncorp Stadium or is it still lost in the Clem 7 tunnel?”

The numbers for the Force are particularly unflattering, picking up no points from four outings. In face, only one team has gone more than five rounds without picking up a single point, the 2006 Force who managed their first Super 14 competition point in week eight of that season.

In attack the Force have scored just five tries, one more than fellow cellar dwellers the Sharks, and have scored the fewest points in the entire competition. On defense, only the leaky Lions have let in more tries and conceded more points, and the Force also have the widest average margin of defeat: 23 point!

Then of course there were the lineouts, which could be called woeful but that term is not really strong enough. Neither hooker could hit his target consistently and the Reds frequently won opposition ball. With a world class lineout jumper like Nathan Sharpe to aim it, the Force’s lineout struggle really do defy belief sometimes.

All of this paints a picture of a team struggling against superior opposition, but their display against the Reds and the Chiefs, the only Force games I have watched in their entirety, the Force have looked like a team devoid of ideas, and struggling to gel.

Coach Mitchell has had his share of off field issues to deal with during his tenure in Perth, facing a full scale player revolution there last year but somehow retaining his job. This season he has lost many of his best players, including Wallaby playmaker Matt Giteau, and has struggled with injuries in other key positions, but these excuses do not make up for the complete lack of direction the team has shown this season.

The refusal to play James O’Connor at fly half, a position he played at schoolboy level, is perhaps the more bizarre of the decisions Mitchell has made this season. After losing Giteau back to the Brumbies and Andres Pretorius to a season ending injury before week one, it would seem that O’Connor was the logical choice to step up, but instead he continued to play at fullback while New Zealand journeyman David Hill was brought into the team.

Mitchell seems to be the teflon man in Perth as nothing has stuck to him in the past, but his past is rapidly catching up to him. A brief stint as England assistant coach, followed by a disastrous tenure as All Black coach, now a number of mediocre season in Perth, you have to wonder who would hire John Mitchell next. A few more performances like Sunday night, and Mitchell could be the first Super 14 coach of 2010 to hit the unemployment line, but even sacking the coach is unlikely to salvage this season for the Force who look destined to finish bottom of the table.

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The How low can the Force sink? by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.