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Luke Burgess (second left) congratulates Wycliff Palu during the match between the Queensland Reds and the New South Wales Waratahs at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010. The Waratahs defeated the Reds 30-28. (AAP Image/Patrick Hamilton)
As I walked out of Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, with Queensland Reds supporters drifting past me with their faces frozen masks of disappointment, their hearts broken with the last minute Waratahs try, I tried to work out whether the Reds are a good side or whether the NSW Waratahs are a weaker side than they were last year.
Next week’s Super Rugby round with the Reds playing the Crusaders at Suncorp Stadium and the Waratahs playing the Stormers at Cape Town will give us more clues as to an answer to this question.
On reflection, and this is subject to revision, of course, I think that Ewen McKenzie has stiffened up and improved the Reds and that Chris Hickey (again, I stress this is on the evidence of one away game) hasn’t done much with the strong squad he has with the Waratahs to improve on their performances last season.
In the Weekend Australian there was a detailed article by the paper’s rugby editor, the feisty and passionate (for Australia and Queensland) Wayne Smith about the do-or-die aspect of that night’s Super 14 match.
Smith pointed out that the Reds had won all the early Reds-Waratahs contests until a McKenzie-coached Waratahs stopped the rot in 2004. The Reds haven’t won their must-win match of the season since that defeat.
Suncorp Stadium is one of the great rugby (league and union) venues. It’s within walking distance of the CBD. The stands are almost vertical walls and you get a tremendous view of play from wherever you are. The surface, too, on Saturday night was perfect for interesting and exciting rugby to be played.
There was, as the television commentators like to say, an electric atmosphere around the ground as the faithful Reds fans, many of them resplendent in the team’s brazen colours. The jersey and scarf shop was doing a roaring trade.
A group of fans bustled past me. I heard one of the woman say: ‘Where’s Wally’s statue?’ This was a reminder that even Reds supporters have an allegiance to the game they play in maroon-coloured jerseys.
In the press box I had a long chat with Wayne Smith. He told me that the club rugby was strong. Rugby was strong in its traditional schools, with Brisbane Boys High School providing up to five players in the Australian Schoolboys side. But somehow this hasn’t translated into a strong showings by the Reds in the Super Rugby tournament of the last decade.
It was important for the Reds to be more competitive this year, he said, that they have been recently. If they were down the bottom of the table again, the crowd numbers would fall even further than they have in recent years.
Smith felt that something quintessentially Queensland was lost when John Connolly, the inaugural and initially successful Super Rugby coach, was not re-appointed after a couple of disappointing seasons. He went through the list of coaches, starting with Mark McBain through to Phil Mooney, who just weren’t up to the challenge.
He thought that the appointment of McKenzie could provide the stability and know-how lacking in previous regimes.
McKenzie, himself, in an article in the match program The Red Express, made it clear that ‘we will enter every match with the intention of winning.’ But he pointed out in the history of Super 14 only one team has gone through a season undefeated. But ‘we will not be running out there to finish second.’
The Reds, before a largish and boisterous crowd, started off strongly. There were massive roars when Berrick Barnes was monstered the first time he touched the ball. The roars turned to boos when he tried to kick for goal, and early on when he missed a long-range drop goal attempt.
Among the things that stood out as the entertaining game progressed were Will Genia’s enormous pass off the ground that put Quade Cooper outside his man time and time again.
Cooper is not my favourite player. He plays too much like a headless chicken at first five-eighths for my liking. I’d play him where Robbie Deans did mainly at inside centre. However, he made breaks, took the ball to the line and every so often produced magical flick passes that opened up play for his support runners.
One of his clever kick-offs, along the ground and barely 10m, was snaffled by the Reds and yet another onslaught on the Waratahs tryline was launched.
He also kicked goals with an unaccustomed accuracy and with a strange method that had him holding his right arm stiffly behind his back and then swinging it through as he put boot to ball.
The method worked, and the Reds backed up the kicking game with three tries, several of them sparked by devastating running from Genia.
Fireworks exploded when the tries were scored. The Zorba the Greek theme music (to the delight of this writer) got the spectators in a clappy-happy frame of mind. The crowd was animated in the expectation that against all the expert commentary and their own inner-most thoughts that a mighty victory was in the offing.
With 12 minutes remaining, the Waratahs scored. But they needed to score again and convert the try to win.
Daniel Halangahu kicked out on the full. The crowd exploded in ironic applause. But then from the scrum, the Waratahs pack won another tight head and the attacks on the Reds tryline continued.
I wrote in my notebook: ‘The Reds scrum is terrible and could lose them the game … But the Waratahs need the backs to do some decent running …’
The ground announcer, behaving like the 16th Reds player, sensed that it was time for the crowd to really get behind the home side.
The ‘We Are The Reds!’ song blared out around the ground. ‘We Are The Reds!’ the ground announcer chanted. The chant was taken up by the crowd. ‘We Are The Reds!’ resounded around the ground as the Waratahs moved the ball ever so close towards the Reds tryline.
The match clock showed 78 minutes had been played.
‘We Are The Reds!’ the crowd shouted as the Waratahs moved the ball from one runner to another. Then there was a spilled ball. An enormous roar filled the stadium. ‘We Are The Reds!’ the crowd shouted. Around me in the boxes grown men were hugging each like teenage kids.
But then, what’s this? The South African referee, Craig Joubert, for a second time, has ruled a penalty against the Reds.
The Waratahs have time for one more series of plays. An initial charge towards the line is stopped. ‘We Are The Reds!’
But it is obvious that that the Reds are out on their feet and short of tacklers if the ball is moved a couple of players wide.
Now Wycliff Palu has the ball. He’s careening towards the tryline like a runaway truck. He goes over the line under several Reds tacklers. Try! A scuffle breaks out. Clearly something has been said by the jubilant Waratahs players that hasn’t been appreciated by the Reds defenders.
While the scuffling is going on, time is ticking away. When the try was scored the match clock showed 89 minutes 20 seconds. Strictly speaking, only 40 seconds are allowed for kicks to be taken.
In theory, at least, there is time for one last play – a short kick-off, perhaps, a penalty won against the defending side and Cooper kicking for goal.
But it is not to be. While the scuffling is going on, Halangahu wanders around without setting up the ball. When he finally sets it up, the full-time whistle blasts. And then he kicks the winning conversion.
I look around to the patrons in the nearby boxes. Their faces, men and woman, are frozen grim and grey, as if they’ve been carved in marble.
Then outside, as a silent, stricken crowd filed away from the heartbreak and as I was wondering if such a dramatic loss might be enough for the faithful Reds to keep the faith, I saw a lanky, hirsute youth race away and yell to nobody in particular but to everybody probably: ‘That’s it. From now on I’m supporting the f….. Brumbies!’