Super Rugby Pacific: Western Force captain Jeremy Williams says team eager to respond after Brumbies loss
Western Force captain Jeremy Williams says his side need no motivation to haul themselves off the canvas and fight for their finals fate against Fijian Drua on Saturday.
Needing to win their final two games of the season, collect a couple of bonus points in the process and hope other results go their way, the Force have arrived in Fiji knowing their Super Rugby Pacific top six hopes are fading.
Saturday night's draining 33-14 loss to the Brumbies at HBF Park left the Force with a mountain to climb to secure a historic finals berth.
Players looked devastated at the game's conclusion, but Williams said he and his teammates were ready to right the wrongs against the Drua.
'We're obviously quite disappointed but we've got to stay level and bring ourselves back to neutral,' he said.
'Whether you win or you get a loss, you've got to reset and go again on Monday, so while we're disappointed, we got some good fixes that we can take out there and get better on during the week, and then go perform come Saturday.
'We've got a pretty energetic group, and it doesn't take much to motivate the boys.'
The Force made a staggering 311 tackles to just 85 against the Brumbies, and Williams himself recorded 32 without a single miss — two shy of teammate Carlo Tizzano's season-high for a single game.
But the Wallabies lock said while they were proud of the defensive effort, they had been forced to make so many tackles because they kept turning the ball over and surrendering possession to the Brumbies too easily.
'A lot of the things that went wrong in the Brumbies game are things that we can fix and control around our discipline and holding possession,' Williams said.
'We don't want to be making that many tackles in a rugby game and making it hard on ourselves.
We've got to be able to hold the ball for long periods of play and make them tackle. If we can do that, and let our backs strike out wide and do a lot of the work, that'll be a positive thing for us.
'For us, it's all about securing the breakdown, making sure that we've got good ball placement, good cleaners, our ruck arrivals are good so we can give the backs good platforms to attack on.'
Now in his second season as captain, Williams is set to play his 50th Super Rugby Pacific game against the Drua.
After extending his contract with the Force until 2027, the former Waratah said he had grown to love Perth.
'This is my third year, and I absolutely love the club, I love the city as a whole. It's a place I call home now,' he said.
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