- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
We begin this week with a tip of the cap to Reds coach Brad Thorn and Waratahs fly-half Bernard Foley.
Both men have come in for criticism from this column previously – Thorn for completely throwing entertainment out the window in favour of winning and then not winning, and Foley for not being good at kicking the ball when his team(s) needed him to be better at kicking the ball.
First to Thorn, and the Queensland Reds registering their first win of 2018 on Friday night – against a Brumbies team which, despite winning their first game, have looked pretty ordinary so far.
The fact that they were able to not only lose to the Reds, but to do so without the home side managing to score a single try was impressive.
The chat out of Queensland is and has been all pre-season that this Reds squad is fitter than ever before. That’s great, if Super Rugby were some sort of team fitness challenge.
Unfortunately, Super Rugby still involves, you know, rugby. And so getting better at that may be something worth looking into at some point.
You won’t get to play underwhelming Australian franchises every week. Well, most weeks you will. And other times it’ll be the Sunwolves. But still, try and be better to watch. For the fans.
The odd try here and there or even just a backline move that makes it beyond the 12/13 channel before breaking down would be nice to see.
Take Eto Nabuli as an example. Nabuli dropped the ball seemingly every time it came his way on Friday night.
And while it would be easy to criticise him for poor handling and anticipation, it’s entirely possible that the big winger had actually dozed off in between touches, such was the sparsity of gameplay to make it out of the wrestle-fest in the centre of the park.
But, to his credit, Thorn did what it said he would do on the side of the tin – win. It wasn’t pretty, but they won. And much like the Waratahs a week earlier against the Stormers in Sydney, the win didn’t fill anyone with a great deal of confidence, but they won.
(Photo by Jono Searle/Getty Images)
And that buys Thorn a tip of the cap and more time to sort the rest of it out. They take on the Bulls on Saturday night which won’t be easy but realistically, the Reds should beat a team that copped 49 points a week ago and then travelled down under.
Anything less than a win and the nay-sayers (me) will be back next week. A win, ugly or otherwise and I’ll tip my cap again, and have another week off from sniping from the sidelines wondering where in the world Quade Cooper is and what he’s up to this weekend.
And as for Bernard, credit where it’s due. He’s been the ‘Ice Man’. Two weeks in a row. A fortnight ago in Sydney, he nailed a sideline conversion to seal the Waratahs win over the Stormers and maintain his 100 per cent kicking record for the game.
Last week it was a 77th-minute conversion – again from the sideline – to secure a draw in Durban against the Sharks.
Foley was clutch. For his team, when it counted. And as much as it makes me scream “Why couldn’t you have done that in Dunedin?!” internally, it’s a really good thing for the Waratahs.
I wrote several weeks ago that the return of Christian Lealiifano to Australian rugby gave Foley genuine competition at number 10 for the Wallabies. Something he has not had for some time now.
Perhaps that is in the back of the ‘Ice Man’s’ thought process when he’s been standing over the tee. For Foley always seems to kick the hard ones and miss the relatively easy ones. He’s kicked to win a Super Rugby title, he’s kicked to advance to a World Cup semi-final.
When I got stuck into him after the Scotland loss in June and his kicking was the talk of the town he promptly went and kicked an almost perfect game the following week against Italy just to spite me (I assume).
Foley will need to be on again this weekend. The Waratahs take on the Jaguares and may be doing so without Kurtley Beale which severely cuts down their attacking options.
The game could well be decided by goal kicking so if the Waratahs are to return from their African/South American trip without defeat – which would be a great success – Bernard will play a crucial role.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Finally, a shout out to the Melbourne Rebels who host the Brumbies on Friday night and will be going for their third win in a row to start the season – something they’ve never achieved as a franchise.
A good squad with a good coach and just about the cushiest possible fixture list to start a season should be winning without a second thought, but this is rugby and they are an Australian rugby team and as such winning should never, ever be taken for granted.
The Rebels face New Zealand opposition just once (the Hurricanes in Round 7) in the first 11 rounds of the competition and close out the season with some tough road games and three New Zealand sides in 7 weeks.
Before they hit that home stretch it is imperative that they win, and win often. Friday night will be the toughest assignment to date, the Brumbies will be out to prove that the loss in Brisbane is not an indicator of where they’re at this season.
Unfortunately for the men from the capital, having watched both of their first two games, I think it might be.