Western Force back-rower Will Harris says new assistant coaches Brad Harris and Craig Dunlea have hit the ground running and their impact has been immediately felt.
The Force opened their pre-season preparations with a come-from-behind 21-19 victory over Queensland Reds at Scotch College last Friday, with Harris impressing in the modified match as the Force scored the winning points off the back of a late attacking scrum.
Both sides were without most, if not all, of their respective Wallabies and Harris started the first of three 30-minute periods alongside a number of potential Force starters, helping his side to an early 14-7 lead after his off-load allowed Brandon Paenga-Amosa to snare a converted try.
The Force suffered a blow in the off-season when forwards coach Tom Donnelly was poached by the Wallabies after the pack’s impressive start to the season and then lost defence coach Will Eggleston to Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo.
It forced head coach Simon Cron to shuffle his deck, bringing in former New Zealand under-20’s assistant Dunlea to replace Donnelly, while ex-Fiji and Georgia assistant Harris filled Eggleston’s role — and Harris was full of praise for both.
“You saw our scrum at the end there, that’s Craig’s main area. He’s added a heap in that department,” Harris said.
“It’s not really a strong suit of mine, but they’re doing a good job, so it suits me.
“Brad’s been awesome. You could see in our defence, we’ve taken a massive step forward from where we were last year.
“Everyone’s on the same page, everyone’s keen to get off the line and climb, so it’s good.”
Harris said the new blood in the coaching ranks had been a positive for the group and himself.
“It’s funny, it seems like it’s happened a fair bit throughout my career. It’s always good to get new ideas and be coached by new people,” he said.
“It’s really suited me along my rugby journey, to have fresh eyes on what I’m doing as an individual and to put it all into a melting pot, keep the good and leave the bad; they’ve been great.”
The Force will host the Brumbies in another trial game at Scotch College on Friday, which will be held under standard rules with two 40-minute halves and a smaller pool of players per team.
They kick-off their Super Rugby Pacific campaign at home against the Canberra outfit at HBF Park on Valentine’s Day.
https://thewest.com.au/sport/western-force/super-rugby-pacific-western-force-back-rower-will-harris-praises-new-assistants-brad-harris-and-craig-dunlea-c-21416431
