Super Rugby Pacific: Western Force coach Simon Cron voices frustrations with team’s travel schedule

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Super Rugby Pacific: Western Force coach Simon Cron voices frustrations with team’s travel schedule

Western Force coach Simon Cron has declared the zig-zag nature of their travel schedule, which will see them top more than 49,000km in distance travailed this season, must be rectified to aid player ********.

With their Super Rugby Pacific season coming to a close, the Force need a pair of bonus point wins in their last two games to clinch an unlikely finals berth, starting against Fijian Drua at Churchill Park on Saturday.

Their task has been made harder by their second four-hour time-zone change in as many weeks, before another four-hour shift again ahead of next Saturday’s home finale against the Waratahs.

In the past fortnight, the Force flew back from Auckland to Perth and then flew to Lautoka in Fiji via Melbourne and will fly back to Perth upon the conclusion of their game against the Drua.

The air miles and time zone changes are having an effect on players; it has contributed to Cron electing to rest stars Nic White, Harry Potter and Hamish Stewart for the first must-win match, due to their high volume of workload this season.

Even without factoring in their 6200km pre-season trip to Canberra to face the Brumbies, the Force have travelled 42,550km and will reach 49,050km once they return from Fiji across 14 Super Rugby Pacific games.

For comparison, Fremantle chief executive Simon Garlick told The West *********** in 2023 that both the Dockers and West Coast travelled more than 60,000km to play 23 games each in 2023.

Camera IconHarry Potter has not made the trip to Fiji. Credit: Phil Walter/Getty Images

“I was pretty clear with the Super Rugby organisers when it first came out how I felt about it, and the Rugby Union Players’ Association were pretty clear around the travel factor for the Western Force,” Cron said.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, we all travel a lot and from Perth we’re going to travel more; good as gold, but the zig-zag nature of home and away and giving us a bye at the end of the season for the highest-travelled team probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“If you’re a smart human, you probably wouldn’t line it up that way if you’re trying to garner success.”

With the Force having spent 35 nights in hotels across the season and all their players flying economy to and from games, Cron said he would prefer to play more two or three-game blocks home and away, rather than a criss-crossing schedule.

“We can decrease our travel by 40 per cent if we do the draw slightly differently, where we have a few home games and a few away games in blocks. A 40 per cent travel decrease for the Western Force is quite significant,” Cron said.

“Is it an excuse? No, we’ve got to handle travel, it’s just if we can be a little bit smarter around the way the draw is formatted, we can probably be a little bit more realistic about the back-and-forth zig-zag and time zones.

“As a coach, I’m fine. But when I look at Darcy Swain hop on a flight after he’s done for us this year, and then hop off again, I feel like I’ve got to pick that fight where I can and look after my boys.

“A couple of weeks ago, we went from Auckland to Perth back to Fiji; we probably just want to go Auckland to Fiji and play and then head back.

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“I’ve been here three years now, and this year, in terms of the zig-zagging was definitely a different beast for us.”

Fly-half Ben Donaldson will start on the bench for the Force against the Drua, with Cron opting for relatively unknown debutant five-eighth Alex Harford over Max Burey at 10.

“He has slightly different strengths; Max, for us, has been coming off the bench and covering a lot of fullback, and Alex is probably a little bit more of a kicking 10, so it’s just horses for courses in what we’re wanting to do in the game moving forward against the Drua,” Cron said.

“Max has got a heap of spark and speed and footwork, and Alex is probably a little bit more restrained and more corner (kicking) based.”

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