These are not easy days to be a Queensland Reds fan.
Sitting through the debacle that was the humbling 63-28 demolition at the hands of the Sunwolves on Saturday afternoon was a painful experience, from the first phase right through to the last. Pundits are piling on, and that can’t be a surprise, as they have been given plenty of ammunition by such an inept performance.
The difficult question now, though, is where to from here? What answers can the Reds find before next Friday night, when a frighteningly good Hurricanes team lies in wait in Wellington?
Is there anything the Reds can do to avoid another massacre? Perhaps not, but a few key changes must be made quickly to start pointing the team in the right direction.
Ben Lucas simply cannot be rewarded with another start after his diabolical first half against the Sunwolves. A loyal servant who has returned home this year, Lucas repeatedly put the game on a platter for the opposition in the opening 40, offering numerous charge downs, an intercept when on attack, even kicking the ball into his own player’s back.
He simply doesn’t offer enough threat to justify these mistakes. Moses Sorovi must be given an opportunity to run a game from the kickoff. While there will still be the odd mistake in his game, he does offer a threat with ball in hand, and experience will help him iron out the errors.
It’s time to bite the bullet and give him a decent run in the 9.
Outside him, Hamish Stewart must be reinstated at flyhalf. Again, he is still prone to the odd error, but his control and kicking game in the win over the Lions, as well as his line busting ability, demands that he be given the reigns and allowed to find his feet at first receiver.
His maturity means that he won’t be scarred by learning in the deep end, and while Brad Thorn has tried to protect him, he has to now acknowledge that he is the future of this team, and we need the future to start now. Jono Lance offers good cover on the bench and can shadow Stewart for the rest of this year until he heads overseas.
Perhaps riding out the season at fullback is also an option for Lance, a position he is familiar with, and one where he can still offer support for Stewart with his kicking game.
Chris Feauai-Sautia was one of the most talented juniors Queensland has ever produced, but it is time for us to realise that his undoubted potential will never be realised at the top level. He floats in and out of games, he falls off tackles and is often seen jogging when he should be sprinting.
(AAP Image/Dan Peled)
The rare flashes of tackle-busting brilliance are not occurring often enough to justify his place anymore. Samu Kerevi needs to move back out to the number 13, where he will hopefully remember that his greatest skill is running hard, not skipping up to the defence in two minds like he does from inside centre.
At 12, the Reds need to reinstall second playmaker Duncan Paia’aua. His cameo in Japan showed promise, and with Stewart at 10, another ball player would be handy. The two young wingers are both worth persevering with, but a fully fit Izaia Perese would also demand selection.
Hopefully, that is not too far away.
Up front, there is hope. With so many unavailable in the pack, it’s not surprising the young Reds struggled on Saturday. Thorn should be admired for taking a hard line with the Smith twins, Ruan and JP, but the sooner they are back in the scrum the better.
Isaak Rodda looks like a future Reds skipper, and he continues to impress every week with his work rate and toughness. Kane Douglas has rediscovered some of his best form, but clearly, the Reds need Lukhan Tui to take up the mantle quickly.
Angus Scott-Young and Liam Wright show promise, but Adam Korczyk has failed to grasp his opportunities over a number of seasons. George Smith is still world class and justifies his place on form, but he needs the hard running of Caleb Timu alongside him to take some pressure off.
With Alex Mafi continuing to botch lineout throws, it would be very interesting to know exactly what Andrew Ready needs to do to be considered by Thorn again. On talent alone, he should demand a spot in the 23, but he seems to be offside with the coach, as he was with Nick Stiles last year.
Brandon Paenga-Amosa and Taniela Tupou continue to offer set-piece strength and running threat, but again, their focus should be the elimination of basic errors. This is a pack that needs to be given time to mature, and in three years could be world class.
The question will be, do Queensland fans have the patience?
Supporting such a young, inexperienced team will always produce disappointing days like Saturday, and the easy answer is to be angry. That’s not an emotion I am unfamiliar with as a Reds fan.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
The focus must be solutions, though. Not throwing the baby out with the bathwater by declaring that Thorn will never be a good coach, clearly a misguided notion. Certainly not calling for the recall of players that we have been told won’t be wearing Red this year, and wouldn’t fix the problems anyway.
The skeleton of a really good team is starting to be built, and it is dark days like Saturday that will, hopefully, teach them some valuable lessons. They’ve got six days to show they are paying attention.
Snow Bjelke-Petersen
Guest
Hey Rhys, what's with the constant Cooper carping? You squealed like a scalded cat when I mentioned your right wing beliefs here yet continue to malign Cooper on the same public forum. You seem to think posting under your real name is heroic yet I doubt you'd have the guts to introduce yourself to the man you contine to snipe. Give it a rest tough guy.
MA
Guest
GC Red, Spot on. We have lost our best players because Cheika has picked and stuck with 2nd and 3rd rate players which left our best with the only option of going overseas. These are players who should have racked up the caps. When they look back on their careers it will not reflect their true talents where as players like Foley who probably deserved 5-10 caps at best will rack up triple figures.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
He cost the Reds a season? In a career of close to 200 professional level games it's happened (High Tackle Card) 5 times as far as I recall. You'd like less but it isn't this issue that's consistently seen in statistics like you suggest. What people ignore is that there were other card offences (tackle without the ball - I think he got MOTM that test too), a tip tackle, etc. that were card offences, that people seem to want to remember as being the same offence (high tackle).
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
"a broken down Q.Cooper who couldn’t even get a game for some frog club" TF do you bother to even check facts before you make comments like this? Because I had a little check myself. For example, he seemed to play a lot more Top 14 than Matt Giteau. Of the 20 games of Top 14 that were played after Cooper arrived, he played in 13 of them, starting at least 8 of those 12. But the fact is Toulon used Giteau, Taylor and Michelek at a minimum across the season. Of the 8 Champions Cup matches, he started in 4 of them. So of 21 games he was used in 16, starting 12 of those 16. Matt Giteau didn't start that many games in that period, I don't think Tom Taylor did either. Likewise Fred Michelek.
ThugbyFan
Guest
I don't know why everyone is moaning and saying "kill the coach". Reds are stuffed from decisions of their previous administrations. There is simply no more money in the cookie jar, they blew all their reserves on ridiculous over-priced player contracts (eg: a broken down Q.Cooper who couldn't even get a game for some frog club and likely G.Smith, L.Houston etc etc) and having to pay out their last 2-3 coaches. You have to agree that it was crazy to appoint Nick Stiles and Brad Thorn as head coaches so early in their coaching careers. Both are fine men and were great forwards so would have a good knowledge of top rugby, both have some successful coaching experience (NRC trophies) and both have a passion for Queensland rugby (a vital commodity in many eyes). However both should have served 2-3 years as assistants to a quality coach before being given the top job. You don't appoint some kid from accounts and just 1 year out of Uni as CEO of your company, you find a bloke who has spent years learning in mid management and working his way to the top. ie: he has the big E, experience, to run the ship. Those crazy decisions of 2014-2017, to take the easy way out rather than finding a top notch coach, will likely adversely affect not only these two men but Queensland rugby for years down the track. From my memory Thorn's only SR experience was about half a season as assistant under the Stile's sinking ship of SR2017. Stiles had far more SR experience, having served with Richard Graham and Matt O'Connor. He also had coached in Japan and an assistant coaching stint for the Force. Its obvious that Stiles had much more experience, I don't know the politics but it seemed crazy to punt Stiles for Thorn. All I saw was they punted a decent forward coach for another forward coach who mantra was "no D.Heads and teamwork", but the Senior Coach IP was still missing. Look at what happened to the Tahs, rather than panic and toss the coach under the bus (and suffer big payouts) they finally changed the blokes under Daryl Gibson and brought in successful and smart assistants such as Simon Cron and Chris Malone. Compared to the last two years, they are going gang busters this SR2018. I would take a bet that Brad Thorn is on about half the money that D.Wessels is on. So lets assume the Reds hierarchy "see their error" and punt Thorn. They lose more money paying him out. They then advertise such as "Head Coach for near skint rugby franchise whose teams always find a way to lose. HC must be willing to work for peanuts with no recruitment or retention money in piggy bank. Must get immediate result and work with axe hovering over head once team has lost 3 matches. Must be able to please 6 member board who all have their own ideas of how to succeed". Good luck on your world wide search with that sort of advertisement. :)
Rhys Bosley
Guest
It is his high tackling that it the problem EIE, not his general defence. He cost the Reds a good season with the red card and three week ban last year and the Barbarians the game with a yellow. It has happened too many times in his career so he clearly can’t be trusted. Neither Foley or Beale have that problem, they are just flakey defenders but that isn’t a deal breaker like Cooper’s problem is. Duncan P. Is a newbie, not a key squad member yet so he gets a bit of grace. You would think Cooper would have spent some time correcting it if he was 100% serious about his rugby, perhaps instead of boxing training and fashion shoots.
Fionn
Guest
Getting rid of Moonie was bad in my eyes. Quality coach, and could be doing a lot of good work at an Australian team.
Hoy
Roar Guru
Thorn, if their previous world wide searches are anything to go by...
Hoy
Roar Guru
Whoa... McKenzie yes. Eddie no. Eddie was pretty bad as Wallaby coach... Mortlock's intercept saved him from going straight after 2003 really... and he was really bad at the Reds. But the teams pick their coaches, and use obviously the most terrible criteria... two world wide searches, and the Reds have picked two coaches that were here already anyway? I mean come on... that is really poor management of the teams.
enoughisenough
Guest
Nah Rhys, what is absurd is your mantra that Cooper still can't tackle properly, given his defence is at least as good as the incumbent Wallabies 10, and better than Beales, the incumbent Wallaby 12. To use that metric for his exclusion from a SR side when he is far better at all other aspects of the game than any other 10 candidate in the squad is the absurdity. I see Duncan P got 10 minutes in the bin for a high tackle trying to stop a try. Oh my stars, lets hear the shrill vitriol shall we? The real absurdity however, is how you twist yourself in knots to support an absurd decision of Thorns, when the bottom line is you just show an irrational dislike for Cooper.
Bigbaz
Guest
He's smart enough to get AR to pay Him 650 k a year to play club rugby , plenty smart I'd say
Cliff (Bishkek)
Guest
Jacko, you do not appoint a Head Coach from a person who has never coached at SR level or above unless they have had years as an assistant. Thorn has none of the necessary "learning / learned" requirements. Good administraiton would have marked Thorn as a likely good and upcoming Coach and appointed a very experience Coaching Director with the oversight and "power" over Thorn and then alowed Thorn to develop. Thorn should not be there. I like Thorn and belive he has potential. However SR and Rugby is a professional game and we need administraitons to advertise, have interviews and select the best Coaches for the job. Currently Thorn is not that person. There is no attack within the Reds and there is no on-field leadership.
Rhys Bosley
Guest
Enoughisenough, it is utterly absurd to suggest that a club and fans should never has to give a coach a reasonable go, while they learn how to operate at the next level. The coach might be the best candidate available and everybody has to make the jump of being promoted at some stage. Irrespective of how experienced they are at the level below, there are no guarantees about how they will go. Richard Graham and Nick Stiles are prime examples of that, both had much longer coaching careers before the Reds than Thorn has and both turned out to be worse - in Graham's case after five years as a Super Rugby coach. As for the discussion about Cooper, if you can't see that a 30 year old professional player on $650k to $800k a year (depending on what you read) should have taken responsibility for learning a core skill like tackling properly by now, I don't have much else to say. Thorn is right to give somebody else a go or in a couple of years when Cooper retires, we will be back to square one. People who think Cooper is a messiah are living in 2011, it is time you just said "thanks for the memories Quadey" and moved on.
RobC
Roar Guru
Come back LFG!!!
RobC
Roar Guru
Keep your hands off him Akari!! :lol:
tyrone
Guest
you seem to forget that David Warner is a best selling author, pretty sure Cathy Freeman also managed to write a book
tyrone
Guest
maybe he is too close to his muslim brother SBW
Dave_S
Guest
“Well their defence and set piece have been good enough to get them as many wins in week 13 than they have gotten in each of the last three seasons.“ Relative to everyone else they are clearly deficient. Worst at scoring points, close to worst at defending ... keep sniffing the glue ...
enoughisenough
Guest
You say that we have stood by players like Cooper hoping they would iron the kinks out of their game, why not give the coach a year or two. Firstly, all players have strengths and weaknesses in their game. Its up to the coach to either make the improvements or to structure their roles to emphasise their strengths, and diminish their weaknesses. Secondly, for the weaknesses you love to emphasise in Coopers game he's still a better 10 or 15 than anyone else in the squad. Surely its up to Thorn to work with what he has, rather than to focus on some perceived weakness, and to then utilise players that have greater weaknesses and deficiencies in their games than Cooper whom Thorn refuses to work with. What's your view then on Foley, the incumbent Wallabies 10, who has limited game management, a poor pass, limited kicking distance, and suspect defence? Cheika seems ok to work with him, despite him being unable to sort the kinks out in his game". And why should coaches be given time to learn their role in SR? Let them serve their apprenticeships elsewhere and be given the job when they have proven ability. Why should we be patient with Thorn, when there's no guarantee he'll make the grade? Is he on an apprentice coaches wage? Your argument for Thorn is tantamount to giving a teenager a professors tenure at University, in the hope that he may well one day be qualified for the post he's been prematurely given.
Bfc
Guest
How the hell did the ARU come up with the opinion the LFG did not warrant a top up contract...the answer likely to be found in the Area 52 files... Matt Toomua wouldn't have needed too much incentive to stay in Oz...his fiance is the great Aussie all-rounder Ellyse Perry and she lies her trade in Oz. But he left...because someone thought he wasn't worth the effort or money. Scott Fardy another player who wasn't wanted by the National coach...and he is killing it in Europe (Leinster?)....