Bayley Kuenzle’s clutch penalty consigned the Fijian Drua to their second heartbreaking loss in a week at Leichhardt Oval this afternoon.
The Drua were up 18-17 and on track for their second Super Rugby Pacific win before the Western Force launched a final attacking foray that lasted 23 phases.
The patient Force then received the decisive penalty call they were seeking, for a high tackle, to give Kuenzle the opportunity to be a hero with time up and from a difficult angle.
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He never looked like missing, striking the Gilbert straight and sweet between the posts to silence a boisterous Fijian crowd in Sydney.
“That was not an easy kick,” Stan Sport’s Morgan Turinui said.
Coach Mick Byrne and captain Nemani Nagusa understandably cut forlorn figures a week after Queensland’s Fijian Seru Uru sunk them in similar fashion at Suncorp Stadium.
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“They’re running onto the field with the weight of a nation on their shoulders,” Justin Harrison said of the Drua on Stan Sport.
“And that’s telling, when you lose a game, that your immediate thought is how many people you’ve let down, how much support you’ve been receiving. That weighs heavily.”
But the Drua again proved why their participation in Super Rugby was long overdue.
Their lineout remains an issue but they played the more exciting brand of rugby and scored two cracking tries to Vinaya Habosi and Frank Lomani.
“It reminds me, let’s not forget, it’s supposed to be fun,” Turinui said.
“It’s supposed to be enjoyable, it’s supposed to be entertaining.
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“We get into the nitty gritty, the analysis, but it’s so good to watch superior athletes who care about the people they’re representing.”
The Force’s two tries were scored by forwards Jeremy Thrush and Fergus-Lee Warner.
The victory lifted the Perth club to fifth on the ladder with a 2-3 record while the 1-4 Drua are ninth.
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“A win is a win is a win, and that’s exactly like the Force needed, 100 per cent,” Turinui said.
“Think about (coach) Tim Sampson, the way he would have ridden out the last 20 minutes of that game. Frustration, relief more than anything.
“He now gets an opportunity to go, ‘righto, we’ve got more work to do. Yes, we’ve got the win, we’ve got a little bit of a release of the old Ewen McKenzie pressure valve, to continue to work’.”
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