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Following on from the questions and really good debate that arose from last week’s discussion, the logical follow-up is to try and identify the number one priority for each of the four Australian Super Rugby sides.
Obviously, all four teams are going to want to good pre-seasons, and come through their trial games and the Brisbane Tens in good shape, and even turn all that into a Round 1 win. Notwithstanding that the Rebels and Reds play each other in Round 1, everyone will have those same obvious priorities.
But what about specific to each team?
Thankfully, this is why speculation was invented.
Queensland Reds: Combinations
Combinations were always going to be key for the Reds with the move toward youth in 2018, and with the off-season shock about Quade Cooper and Karmichael Hunt still subsiding, combination among the 2018 youth is going to even more important again.
Monday’s news that the Reds have signed ex-Western Force flyhalf and Melbourne Rebels recruit Jono Lance is really good news, and a crucial missing piece for the Reds’ 2018 puzzle found. Instead of having to fast-track the development of Hamish Stewart in the no.10 jersey, coach Brad Thorn can now call on a seven-year professional with more than fifty games’ experience at this level, and a couple of Super Rugby titles to boot.
Off-season experience in a different competition, with English Premiership side Worcester, will also be really important.
And though the announcement made it sound like it has just happened, it’s my understanding Lance as been training at Ballymore since he returned from the UK. And this can’t be underestimated; the sooner Lance gets used to the guys around him and the Reds gameplan, the better off everyone will be.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Lance ticks so many boxes for the Reds, too. They get an experienced flyhalf who kicks well and defends up front, and is even returning home. They can also put Stewart through something of a playmaking apprenticeship from fullback, thus filling the hole left by Hunt’s absence. I’d go as far as saying it’s the best Reds news this year.
NSW Waratahs: Forwards platform
The Waratahs need to fix a lot of areas from 2017, most notably their excruciatingly porous defence and their inability to play for eighty minutes, but none of that matters until they get it right up front.
The arrival of Rob Simmons from the Reds, and Tom Staniforth from the Brumbies is really important, and will definitely improve their lineout, which was certainly an issue at time last season. The arrival of the wonderfully named Shambeckler Vui from Perth is similarly important for the Waratahs’ scrum.
Those three in particular, add some quality to the NSW tight five and set piece, and that’s the sort of thing you can build a game plan around. Even with Jack Dempsey’s return from injury somewhat uncertain, the ‘Tahs remain well resourced in the backrow department, too, meaning they can hang on to that attempted up-tempo game they played last season.
And this, in turn, will make life easier for Kurtley Beale’s return out wide. Before the forwards additions were confirmed, there was an underlying assumption that Beale being back would solve everything, which would have been as ambitious as it is naïve.
The Wallabies’ finish to 2017 proves that even Beale need a forwards platform, and the Waratahs are now better placed to provide that in 2018.
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Brumbies: The next Pocock
Injuries rarely strike at convenient times, but the Brumbies will certainly argue this week that it’s better they lose David Pocock for up to three months right now than in, say, May.
(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
Regardless, it’s a bit of a bummer that Pocock won’t be right for the start of the season, particularly given his injury-enforced and voluntary absences since he first arrived in Canberra.
But, if there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Brumbies are really well equipped to deal with injury or other misfortune within their backrow stocks. Though at the end of the 2017 season, as the overseas departures started rolling in, it looked like the Brumbies would be hit hard.
Pocock returning would help, but losing a starting backrow of Scott Fardy, Jarrod Butler, and Jordan Smiler was significant.
Despite those losses, and now even with Pocock’s return delayed, there’s room for optimism among the Brumbies faithful. Dan McKellar still has to flip a coin between Lachie McCaffrey and the hugely exciting Rob Valetini at blindside, and he has to pick between Lolo Fakasoliea and Isi Naisarani at number 8.
Tom Cusack was the standout openside flanker of the NRC in 2017 is ready to go at Super Rugby level.
Cusack didn’t look out of place in his couple of appearances off the bench for the Brumbies last year, either, and despite being only 24, has a surprising amount of leadership experience.
He’s travelled the world on the Sevens circuit, been to the Olympics, but more than a year on from his return to the XVs game, he’s shown he has the game and fitness to excel on the side of the Brumbies’ scrum.
And for what it’s worth; Cusack’s backrow partners in the NRC Team of the Year last season? Valetini and Naisarani.
Melbourne Rebels: Hit the ground running
They’ve assembled a crack-looking squad, and from all reports, the new-look Rebels have been getting on like a house on fire over the off-season before training that very same house down. Dave Wessels has them humming, baby, humming.
But the Rebels have a bit less than a month of the honeymoon left, before they run out onto the ground for real, with points on offer, and with pens poised and ready to analyse whether the whole stronger-by-contraction debacle was really worth all the pain.
If the expectations around the Rebels in 2017 were ‘up there’, they’ll be comparatively stratospheric in 2018. I know I wrote that 2017 was going to be “the year the Rebels take the next step”, so I’ve already got them pencilled in at a rung or two above that this year.
They can’t start slow; they just can’t. Wessels has to wind them up like a toy car for the next month and send them out in Round 1 with their wheels spinning. Whether they like it or not, the Rebels will be the Australian barometer this year.
Their first game together needs to look more like the twentieth or thirtieth. They have to know their first XV from the outset, because there won’t be time to experiment.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
They have to start well, because they need to be the good news story in Australia in 2018.
Yes, sure, Australian rugby will be stronger if the Reds and Waratahs and Brumbies are stronger.
But Australian rugby will be in the news – for good reasons – if the Rebels are stronger, too.