The DJ at Western Force’s home ground gave it their all in a bid to breathe life into the deadest of dead rubbers on Saturday night and they nailed the brief.
Nic White walking off the ground for a HIA to the sounds of the Village People’s Macho Man was a mic drop moment, but even more apt was the sounds of Jet booming through the speakers on a night when Corey Toole and his back three Brumby mate Tom Wright provided yet more evidence of why Joe Schmidt should be looking to pair them up at Test level this year.
Events elsewhere on Saturday meant there was nothing to play for from a Super Rugby finals perspective. The Force had their slim chances extinguished by Fijian Drua’s whopping win over the Rebels, while the Brumbies, who won this 24-19 after conceding two tries in the last two minutes, went into the game with third spot confirmed along with a home quarterfinal against the Highlanders in Canberra next Saturday.
The Brumbies face a nervous wait around their prop stocks after after Wallaby Blake Schoupp was forced off in agony just two minutes into his return from a shoulder injury.
Toole went off for recovery straight after the game but emerged for a TV interview with ice on his knee. It can’t have been too bad though as Jono Lance neglected to ask him about it.
Schoupp missed the past four matches after his injury against the Hurricanes in late April and was called up to replace fellow Test No.1 James Slipper for the Brumbies’ dead rubber against Western Force in Perth.
Blake Schoupp of the Brumbies gets helped off the ground after injuring his arm. (Photo by James Worsfold/Getty Images)
Slipper has a high calf strain and is likely to miss next week’s home quarterfinal against the Highlanders in Canberra after wins to the Blues and Hurricanes confirmed a third-placed finish for the Brumbies.
The Stan commentators speculated that Schoupp had suffered a dislocated shoulder or an elbow injury after he carried the ball forward and was tackled by Force hooker Tom Horton.
Schoupp was replaced by Harry Vella, who has also just returned from injury.
As expected, the game didn’t hit many high notes. In the first half there was a try to Toole set up by Wright’s hard, straight running.
Neither team scored a point between the 38th minute and the 60th, when Toole repaid the favour to Wright.
Queensland might own the Junkyard Dog, but the Brumbies wouldn’t trade Toole, the Wagga Wagga Greyhound, for anyone right now. Toole turned on the afterburners down the left and, confronted by makeshift Force winger Carlo Tizzano, sent Wright in for the try.
The Force were cruelled by what lock Izack Rodda called the “curse of the 6-2 bench” which meant Tizzano mismatched against Toole.
Hamish Stewart, in his 100th game, was forced off with injury and his replacement Sam Spink followed him off the park within minutes.
Issak Fines-Leleiwasa and George Poolman put the coda on the Force’s season with two tries in the final stages but they were left to reflect on another tough slog down near the bottom of Super Rugby.
It’s hard to base any predictions based on the Brumbies’ performance considering the lack of jeopardy.
“I think most of our boys know how hard it is to play the Force from the history over the last few years,” said Alaalatoa. “We got that tonight and I think that was perfect prep heading into next week.
“We spoke about at halftime just little areas around our contact which we ended up on the wrong side of the whistle. So those are little things, especially away from home, that we need to clean up and I know that we’ll look at that hard.”
How far they go might just depend on the impact of Toole and Wright.
“It’s the way that he’s able to not only create for himself at the moment, but be able to create for the people around him,” said former Wallaby Cam Shepherd of Wright on Stan.
“He carries the ball well in two hands and has out and out pace.”