Western Force rugby coach John Mitchell wants his team to be attack focused but patient heading into their must win Super 14 rugby battle with the Stormers in Cape Town on Sunday morning (AEST).

The Perth-based team enter the penultimate round in ninth spot, five points behind the fourth placed Sharks.

The Force need a bonus point victory, which could potentially draw them level with the Sharks if the South African team loses at home to the Waratahs a few hours earlier.

Such a result would keep the Waratahs at least one point ahead of the Force, who also have the Crusaders, Brumbies and Blues ahead of them in the struggle to secure fourth spot.

A bonus point win for the Sharks would reduce the Force's finals aspirations to little more than a minute mathematical possibility and extinguish them totally if the Western Australian team doesn't pick up a five-point haul at Newlands.

The Force play the final game of the round, but Mitchell said the earlier results would have no bearing on their approach.

"We are going for four tries and the victory, it is irrelevant what happens around us," Mitchell told AAP from Cape Town.

"We will continue to be attack focus and play the game that we want to play, we can't control any of the other stuff, or sit there nervously waiting for the rugby gods.

"We've been in this situation pretty close to four weeks now, so nothing changes."

The depleted Stormers languish in 11th spot on 19 points, having won just three of their 11 games.

Springbok stars Conrad Jantjes and Schalk Burger this week joined a significant casualty list which already included two other Test stars Jean de Villiers and Percy Montgomery.

Despite their ordinary record, the Stormers have been fiercely competitive, picking up a bonus point for six of their eight losses and have the fourth best defensive record in the tournament.

Mitchell was also wary of a side which appears to have developed a siege mentality.

"They have had media bans and are getting a bit of a flogging in the media, so that tends to inform me they will be pretty fired up come Saturday," Mitchell said.

"I think their ability is in disguise. If I was a betting man at the start of the competition I would have picked them to be certainly in the top four.

"They haven't really been put away and a lot of the losses have been close, they've been very hard to break down, so we're going to have to be pretty patient.

"They will still have a good scrum and a relentless kicking game.

"They've got a halfback and a five-eighth who both have good left foots, so we will be doing a fair bit of catching in our back 50.

"They will look to wheel our scrum a lot. Previously they've looked to attack our scrum and looked kicking behind us, so I don't think they will play any different."

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