The Waratahs need to be ruthless to shake off the Western Force in Perth next weekend, halfback Nick Phipps says.
NSW has had mixed history against the WA franchise, going down to them even in their championship 2014 season, as the Force's suffocating defence shutting down NSW'sattack.
Phipps said the Force might feel they have the secrets to success against the Waratahs, so it was up to NSW to step things up a level with their finals chances on a knife's edge.
“They probably think they’ve got the blueprint to beat us but we’ve got to go over there and get some points to be honest, so we've got to make sure we’re ruthless this week,” he said.
“The front half of the week we’ve got to make sure we’re really working hard on our core skills and how we want to play the game so when we get there we can be confident leading into the game that we can get that (attacking) space that we want.”
With a 2-4 record to start the year, the Waratahs have no more byes until the June Test window and need to win almost all their games to stay in touch with finals.
Phipps said the side wouldn’t lose its determination to make a Super Rugby impact despite their record so far.
“We’re a strong group, nothing’s going to deter us from our goal,” he said.
“It’s disappointing as a minor setback at the beginning of our seven-week block but it happens.
“We played a quality team tonight we let ourselves down, we know it was winnable in stages.
“We shouldn’t be deterred too much from that.”
Phipps found positives in the side’s los to the Brumbiess, which he said was one of its better performances of the season.
“It’s hard to look at it like that after a loss but I do feel we played a lot better tonight,” he said.
“Besides some silly handling errors and some ball skills that need a bit of fine tuning, we are getting the structures right ,we are getting that space that we want, we want that space.
“Our forwards stepped up a fair bit tonight in the physical defensive passages around the breakdown and our control with KB in there was a lot better in there tonight.
“We’ve just got to keep persisting and be better at what we’re doing.”
