Western Force have capped a dominant National Rugby Championship season with a five-try second half demolition of Canberra Vikings to win the grand final 41-3 at UWA Sports Park.
Having finished on top after the regular season, the Force entered Saturday’s decider warm favourites on a typical Perth summer day, but it did take until the second half before they got rolling.
Canberra scored first courtesy of a Ryan Lonergan penalty before the Force got the game’s opening try through hooker Heath Tessman.
They should have had another on half-time but a desperate Tom Wright denied Isaak Fines.
It wouldn’t deter the home team though. It took just over a minute into the second half for Tessman to set up lock Fergus Lee-Warner to score.
Inside centre Nick Jooste powered his way through for another try soon after before Tessman made it a double and the Force were out of sight.
Lock Jeremy Thrush crossed for a five-pointer of his own and then just before full-time, the NRC’s leading try scorer Jonah Placid roared to the line after a brilliant set up kick from Andrew Deegan.
Lee-Warner was voted man of the match and awarded the Phil Waugh Medal.
They may no longer be part of Super Rugby, but the Force have ensured their relevance firstly by the creation of Global Rapid Rugby and now their success in the NRC.
“In our pre-game meeting, I said we’ve got to go 90 minutes and we did,” Force coach Tim Sampson said after their breakthrough NRC win.
“Even though we made a couple of errors in the first half, tactically we nailed it and our set piece was firing. So we were pretty comfortable at half-time and the squad was calm and composed, which was a good sign.
“In these sort of games, up front your set piece is going to win it for you and also your defence. And gee whiz, in those areas of the game today we were outstanding.”