Coach Byrne Shifts Focus

Swire Shipping Fijian Drua head coach Mick Byrne believes his side can overcome the Western Force in round six of the Shop N Save Super Rugby clash at Churchill Park in Lautoka this Saturday.

This follows Drua's victory over the Wara­tahs 39-36 in a golden point fashion while the Force recorded its first 40-31 win of the sea­son over Reds at the HBF Park in Perth on Saturday.

Byrne said while the team regrouped after their match they proved they could play 90 minutes (about one and a half hours) of rugby.

"The Western Force will do their home­work, and we'll work through that. We'll wait till Monday (today) to start looking at Western Force," he said.

"But one of the things we learned from today (Saturday) was if we are going to play at home, we can play the 90 minutes (about one and a half hours).

"We need to go hard right from the first minute and keep going. So, we'll see how to pull up, get our Western Force stuff go­ing and we'll go from there."

Byrne shared a coach's banter while wearing a Chicago Bulls cap at the af­ter match press conference on Satur­day in response to the then Force cap­tain who referred to the Bulls after their win over the Drua two years ago - "We might not have played like the Chicago

Bulls. And we might not have won right like the Chicago Bulls, but we won. That's it. That's the most important thing."

Byrne gave credit to the Waratahs for the pressure they posed on them, he mentioned first five eight Kemu Valetini's winning drop goal broke the hearts of the visitors.

"I said to the boys, we find new ways to win games of rugby. You will only do it if you dig deep and come back in the second half, but we were good enough to step across the line at the end."

The Drua host Force at 1.05 pm on Saturday again at Churchill Park, Lautoka.

Feedback: waisean@fijisun.com.fj