Homegrown players a force for survival

WESTERN Force coach Dave Wessels says his team will play for its future in Super Rugby’s first month and hope success can convince the ARU to take them off the chopping block.

While Wessels wants a win over the Waratahs on Saturday night in Sydney to help secure survival, a first big step toward salvation could be found on their teamsheet.

In the team for the Round 1 clash, the Force will field as many as eight homegrown Perth players – a record. The club has 12 players in its 38man squad who grew up in WA or have risen through Perth premier rugby.

Dane Haylett-Petty, his brother Ross, Curtis Rona, Kane Koteka, Richard Hardwick, Chance Peni, Luke Burton and Ryan Louwrens are all likely to play against the Waratahs.

Throw in the fact the Perth Spirit are NRC champions and Wessels said it was evidence that cutting the Force would be counter-productive.

“Our club now is 12 years old, so if you take a kid who is 22/23 now and is starting to play regular Super Rugby, he was 10 years old when the club was formed,” Wessels said.

“So we are getting the first wave of players who started to play because there is Super Rugby in Perth.

“We now have more locally produced players than ever in the team and a huge number of those starting on the weekend.

“It would be really silly to stop that, just as we are starting to see the fruits of that labour come through the system and benefit Australian rugby more widely.

“Dane is a perfect example of that, and his younger brother Ross has the potential to be a Wallaby too. These are local boys who would probably never play for the Wallabies if there was no Super Rugby team in Perth.”

The Force’s record percentage of homegrown talent comes in the same week ARU COO Rob Clarke said “you don’t axe or walk away from a successful product”.

Clarke was referencing the Brumbies’ future but ARU chairman Cameron Clyne addressed player production last year when he said: “The real test of success will be, if you fast-forward to the future, are kids from Victoria and WA coming through the pathway and playing for the Force and the Rebels? That will be the true test of whether expansion is a success.”

The Rebels, who open the season against the Blues in Melbourne tonight, have six homegrown players in their squad.