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I walked away from ANZ Stadium in Sydney the weekend before last, wrestling with one particular thought in my mind. And it has not disappeared over the week just gone. After the (let’s be polite and say) ‘dour’ clash between the Waratahs and Brumbies, I had a quick chat with Roarer Grimmace, who’d come down to Sydney from western New South Wales for the match.
As we chatted over our refreshments (which was the Gathering of The Roarers, as it turned out), Grimmace said two things to me that I haven’t been able to get rid of.
The first thing he said was, “they just need a dose of the Reds”, which I thought was one of the more insightful things ever said over post-match beers.
But I’ll come back to this later.
The other thing he said, and this is what I’ve been wrestling with ever since, was, “they know each other too well.” Considering pretty much all the Waratahs and Brumbies players play their club rugby in Sydney, for either Sydney Uni or Randwick it seems, this statement of Grimmace’s then got me thinking forward to next year.
The new Super 15 competition, which will bring in the Melbourne Rebels as the fifth Australian side, will include a full home and away series of matches between the teams within each national conference.
Whereas in the previous guises of Super 12 and Super 14 fans only got to see one or two local derby matches at home each season, from next year all the Australian sides will host each other once over the season.
This of course means we’ll get to see repeat doses of the less-than-enthralling clashes like what the Waratahs and Brumbies served up in Sydney.
But are we sure more local derbies are a good thing?
If the players all know each other’s games so well, having spent so much time together in club rugby or oversized rep squads, can we really expect to see exciting contests and expansive games?
My real concern is that with the top team from each national conference guaranteed a finals place from next season, there will be even less incentive for the leading teams to play with any major risk. For those already hating the Waratahs unofficial “win ugly” policy, it would be hard to expect anything too different should they find themselves leading the Australian conference. The safest option would appear to be play however necessary to get the win, and maintain the top spot.
I’m not sure a full home and away series of Waratahs-Brumbies-type clashes is the sort of thing anyone would want to pay to watch, never mind paying more to broadcast.
Fortunately, the Brumbies must have caught wind of Grimmace’s “dose of the Reds” prescription going into the second leg of their Derby Week, and essentially beat the Reds at their own game.
In one of the better Australian derby matches in recent years, and easily the Brumbies best performance at home in that period of time and more, the Brumbies finally put a team away in a manner expected by such a strong roster.
The first half of this game had everything: it was physical, it was willing, and it was niggly. It was as good an opener as you could expect to see in a local derby, and the crossover of former Reds and Brumbies players in the opposition strip just added to an engrossing first forty.
The Brumbies pack was quick to establish set-piece domination, and that was only further enhanced when injuries to locks Adam Byrnes and Rob Simmons meant that Queensland effectively played out the game with five flankers behind its young front row.
With the Brumbies forwards leading the way, the tries soon followed, although once again these came through the forwards and not the backline, which is something that still must be of concern to the coaching staff. The backline execution was decidedly better than their last outing in Sydney, but they’re still not exactly flooding us with line breaks.
Matt Giteau won the battle with Quade Cooper, but in truth, it was a much closer thing than the scoreboard suggests. While Giteau played the perfect hand in providing direction for a team already going forward, Cooper still impressed me for the way he still tried to spark the Reds backs into action at any opportunity.
Will Genia deserves special mention too. This was the first time I’ve seen him play live, and what was clear was just how much work he does around the paddock to steer his side around. While Cooper might have been setting the backs to attack, it was Genia who dictated when they would be required. Quite often he would recycle the ball through the forwards, even if only to gain feet or inches, just to ensure the attacking raids started from the best possible field position. To watch such a calm head in action, it’s scary to remember he’s still only 22.
While Giteau, Rocky Elsom, Ben Alexander and Steven Moore got a lot of the wraps for the Brumbies, and deservedly so, it’s also worth giving a nod to locks Mitchell Chapman and Mark Chisholm. Both played very well around the ground, and were pinching Queensland line-outs for fun by game’s end. Chisholm, especially, had his best game in many a moon.
If next year’s local derbies take on a form more like the Brumbies-Reds, rather than the Waratahs-Brumbies the week before, then perhaps my concerns will be unfounded. Open games with both teams willing to have a crack is what the fans want to watch, and what the new breakdown interpretations encourage.
More local derbies should be something to look forward to next year, for we’ll finally be seeing that long-overdue meaningful domestic competition. It would be a shame to have it all brought undone by dour, low-risk rugby.
“Win ugly” should be punishable by death, if necessary, to get the message through. But then, if all teams take their “dose of the Reds” next year, then perhaps we won’t need to go that far.