Two-try Paisami silences the Force

REDS captain James O’Connor criticised his teammates for drifting from the gameplan as they narrowly overcame the Force 26-19 to keep their unbeaten record intact.

Hunter Paisami, a shooin for Dave Rennie’s Wallabies squad in June, contributed two tries to help secure the bonus point but a high penalty count allowed the accurate boot of Force fly-half Jake

McIntyre to keep the visitors within distance.

The Force found themselves on the back-foot within the first ten minutes as O’Connor took the aggressive option of a scrum, where scrum-half Tate McDermott picked the ball up himself and skipped inside to the line.

After a McIntyre penalty, Paisami ran a flat line as first-receiver to burst through the Force defence for his first try.

The visitors wouldn’t let the contest get away from them as Feleti Kaitu’u bulldozed his way over the line on 20 minutes and McInout tyre added another penalty on the brink of half-time.

A McIntyre penalty opened the second half and gave the Force the lead, but they couldn’t contend with the Reds’ muscle going forward and Paisami was over far too easy with a dummy creating an opening for him to score from 40 metres out.

McIntyre drew scores level off the tee at 19-19, but with 14 minutes remaining the Reds were over through some magic by code-hopper Suliasi Vunivalu who fended a defender to the ground before a one-handed pass

wide gave Jock Campbell an easy stroll to the line.

Despite a ninth-straight win on home soil, captain O’Connor was not impressed by all aspects of the Reds victory.

He said: “We weren’t clinical and we didn’t stick to our game plan.” Matt Toomua appears on track to win the competition’s golden boot as he added 18 points to his haul for the season in the Rebels’ 33-14 win over the Waratahs.

The match was put far beyond the Waratahs when Toomua added to Lachie Anderson’s opening score, breaking clear and chipping over Mark Nawaqanitawase and collecting the ball to dive over.

Hooker Jordan Uelese had dotted down to make it 33-0 before Jeremy Williams and Tane Edmed scored consolation tries for the Waratahs.