It might not have the history of New South Wales and Queensland, and it might not even have the ‘little brother v big brother’ element that fuels the Hume Highway derby between the Brumbies and the Waratahs.
But the Reds-Brumbies rivalry is now the premier Australian rugby rivalry. Why? Because it always delivers.
Saturday night’s 24-22 thriller in Brisbane followed last month’s 40-38 thriller in Canberra. All in, we’ve now seen a total of 124 points and 14 tries scored between the sides over 160 minutes this season, and only four points has separated them.
And just to throw salt into the wound for Brumbies fans, the Reds have led for at best four of those 160 minutes.
The closeness between the side this season is quite incredible.
The Reds have scored 244 points to the Brumbies’ 241. Defensively, the Brumbies have conceded 145 points to the Reds’ 140. The Reds have scored 30 tries to the Brumbies 33, one of those being a penalty try. The Reds have conceded 14 tries to the Brumbies’ 13.
The Reds have yielded four bonus points (all for scoring three tries more than their opposition) to the Brumbies’ five (three for three tries more, two for losing by less than seven – both to the Reds, obviously).
21 players have scored two or more tries this season in Super Rugby AU; eight are Reds and ten are Brumbies. In total, 13 Reds have scored their 30 tries, while the Brumbies’ 32 (plus a penalty try) have been shared among 15 players.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
A little sidebar here, just to highlight the Reds’ and Brumbies’ staggeringly contrasting styles of play compared to other three Australian sides this season.
Over in New Zealand, 87 tries have been scored across seven rounds, but have been shared relatively evenly across the five teams. There is only nine tries the difference between the Chiefs’ 13 to the Crusaders’ 22. The Hurricanes have scored 15, the Blues 17, and the Highlanders 18.
In Australia, the tally is 88 tries over eight rounds, and as we’ve already established, 63 of them come from the top two teams.
Behind them, the Waratahs have score nine tries, while the Rebels and Force have managed just eight each.
Collectively, the four leading try-scorers in Australia – Alex Mafi, Taniela Tupou, Tom Banks, and Folau Fainga’a have 18 between them – trail the other three teams’ communal aggregate by seven.
In truth, the two heart-stopping games between the sides this year is just a continuation of what really began at the start of last year. The Super Rugby AU Final last September was decided by just three points.
In fact, Saturday night was the fourth game in the last six played since the start of 2020 to be decided by fewer than three points, and the fifth in those six games with less than a try in it.
But we can go a bit deeper, again. The National Rugby Championship in 2018 and 2019 featured many of the same players on show in Brisbane on Saturday night, and produced similarly close contests.
In 2019, Queensland Country beat Canberra 36-23 in Round 2, only for Canberra to bounce back the following weekend and topple Brisbane City 36-35.
The year before, Country again beat Canberra 45-35 in the opening round, and Canberra knocked off Brisbane City in a close final round match, 13-10 in the pouring rain in Brisbane, from memory.
Even the 2017 final was locked up at 28-all with ten to play, before Queensland Country scored two converted tries in four minutes to win their only NRC title, over the Vikings in Canberra.
It’s astounding how often these playing groups have done it!
So, the Reds have now won three of the last four clashes – last year’s final being the only loss – and they’re unbeaten in Brisbane since 2015.
But this is something of a gradual correction of what still is a fairly lop-sided overall picture.
It took until 1999, the fourth season of Super 12 as it was then, before the Reds beat the Brumbies for the first time, and until 2011 for their second win, that one doubling as the first time Queensland won in Canberra. Overall, the record still sits 27-11 in the Brumbies favour, and with a 19-19 draw in 2013.
But even back then, it was awfully close: the first six clashes were all decided by fewer than eight points.
It’s been an absolute treat to have the Reds and Brumbies face off six times since the start of last year, and with one more meeting highly likely this year. But it is obviously a silver lining of the COVID-forced implosion of the old Super Rugby that has allowed this to have been the case.
And this will be something to keep in mind if plans for a reunited, relaunched trans-Tasman Super Rugby with a Pacific flair do come to fruition in 2022.
In a twelve-team competition, will all teams meet just once before the finals, or might we see an east and western conference of six teams each, to add five more weeks of ‘local derbies’ to the season schedule before any finals are played?
I guess it will come down to whether SANZAAR, Australia and New Zealand want a 15-week competition, or something longer. For what it’s worth, it will be 18 weeks in total from the start of Super Rugby AU (Super Rugby Aotearoa started a week later) to the proposed Super Rugby Trans-Tasman Final on June 19.
Which means potentially, we should enjoy this golden period of Reds and Brumbies blockbusters, because the days of three and four showdowns a year are certainly numbered.
But goodness, what a run it’s been over the last year and a bit.
AndyS
Guest
Did the local clubs actively run the state team pre-professionalism? I would see it as almost exactly the same relationship. If they want tribalism, the NRC needed to be the top level for locally based players. Good players should have entered the system at junior reps, play right up through U20s, and into the NRC team. Last I looked, the age comps already look much like that sort of NRC, so it is hardly a stretch. For mine, it is all a part with the code having lost sight of its purpose. Time was, the elite game was run primarily to fund the amateur game for the masses. Unfortunately, professionalism seems to have turned their heads completely upside down and everything is now in service to professionalism, as an end in itself. I think the game will stay broken until they fix that first (and that includes the professional side).
jeznez
Roar Guru
My thought is that local Premier clubs have enough to be doing running their club. Should be a separate entity running any tier above them. So do you then create a whole new set of people to run NRC teams? Or recognise the NRC exists to help develop players and coaches for Super and so have your Super sides run them?
AndyS
Guest
No, we had certain clubs involved and others excluded. Super control is certainly better than that, but as above, control for mine should be at Union level. If Super control is better than that, then one would have to ask whether SR has too much control over the amateur game, and also I suppose whether those Unions are relevant any more.
AndyS
Guest
Effectively the Union, I guess. In essence the teams would be the old state teams, as the banner for all professional development. In Sydney and Brisbane it could be City/Country, or a geographic split (maybe trickier), or independent subject to the same competition rules, or even SRU/NSWRU.
Laurence King
Roar Rookie
Suspect that there is truth in what you say. lol
numpty
Roar Rookie
Not Taniela and the scrum penalties he brought?
jeznez
Roar Guru
G’day Andy. That’s kind of the model we had in NSW, while everyone else went the Super team’s control route. Seemed pretty clear that the Super control was superior
stillmissit
Roar Guru
Pinetree: Transitional rather than underrated would be my take on it.
Jimbo81
Roar Rookie
Several factors Brett. The average age for a start: one of the youngest teams in the comp. not like the Brumbies who are a team in decline doing all the things that used to win games but doesn’t anymore. The Players will mature with fine wine. The last time QLD had riches like this the NSW rugby mafia introduced a salary cap which saw us lose a handful of jey players and we were only a top five side after that... Secondly, look at players we have developing behind the scenes. Some have been mentioned but the big one is Lynagh’s son. We can ineffectual run JOC with Lynagh as the u der study and any short term injuries can be covered ably by Stewart, Hegarty, maybe even Campbell. Thirdly, watching the Reds, they are still making a lot of errors. While we are putting teams away, the scoreboard only rarely balloons. These errors will eventually be ironed out and records will tumble. Fourthly, we have only begun to achieve an aura of invincibility. Look at what perception has done for NZ for so long. The 50:50 calls all went their way for decades and these timely interactions add up to wins. Undefeated this season and this only feels like our 2010; the 2011 season of perfection is yet to come. There are other factors like a self fulfilling prophesy: the best and brightest players eager for victories and gold jerseys will want to play for the Reds. We’ve already seen returning players like Rodda shun offers from the Tahs. Would you want to play there? Look at how good Cusack is at 7: playing for the wrong team, miles behind the pecking order for Wallaby flankers. If the 2021 Reds can go undefeated and we’re not even the finished and complete side... Does that answer your 70% question?
Joe King
Roar Rookie
So AndyS, are you saying that the premier comps would pick and run their teams instead of the SR teams?
RobC
Roar Guru
Yes. Conversely if they had someone like Poey on their side I think the Brumbies would have had a more comfortable second half
AndyS
Guest
A... about in my opinion, for an NRC. The important link is down, not up, so I would have said a team for each Premier comp, two each for Sydney and Brisbane, and players only get paid development contracts if they are actively playing in the comp associated with each NRC team. And non-Wallaby SR contracted players return to their NRC team, or there are financial/developmental compensations from the team that gets them.
Bentnuc
Roar Pro
Great article Brett :rugby: Things are looking the brightest from an oz rugby perspective in a long time. Very confident that both Reds and Brumbies have the ability to beat any of the NZ teams on their day as they are both playing smart, effective, team rugby.
jeznez
Roar Guru
G’day Joe. While I love the idea of the Tahs v Shute. It wouldn’t work in the current environment. It would basically just be a shop front for Shute guys to be picked up by any team. I’d rather that guys from Premier around the country all had that opportunity. Maybe if each Super AU team had one associated NRC side and then there were perhaps three Premier NRC teams. One each for Shute and Qld Premier, and a combined side from Dewar, WA Premier and John I Dent. Would give us an 8 team comp, question over whether an equivalent of the Drua could still be involved. In time as the other Premier comps improve. There could be a Super related team plus an uncontracted side in each location getting us to 10 teams.
Geoff Parkes
Expert
No mate, would never tar you with that brush! :laughing:
Joe King
Roar Rookie
Hey jeznez, maybe one way of drawing NSW into a new NRC would be to have two teams from NSW (1) the Waratahs (minus their Wallabies), and (2) the best of the Shute Shield players for that season. Let the Shute Shield organise and run their team. I saw this idea somewhere else, but I think it would engage fans and players to see this derby, and I think the Shute Shield boys would love to prove themselves against the other NRC teams. I also think it helps make the pathway clear for club players, and more exciting for some of the older club players who might otherwise be overlooked by the Tahs looking to recruit younger players. Instead, the best club players get selected in a rep team and get to show their worth.
mzilikazi
Roar Pro
Had not seen that news re Alan AA. Interesting. Yes, Ulster are playing some good rugby too. The right wing Robert Baloucoune is developing nicely.
Joe King
Roar Rookie
The TT will give a good indication of any improvement, and each NZ team will get the same amount of games (+ 1) against the Aus teams as they would in old SR.
mzilikazi
Roar Pro
Chully Bun.....really enjoy all your wonderful and insightful comments...but I do worry, are you really a human being or what ?
Joe King
Roar Rookie
For me, it's not just the number of showdowns between the Aus teams. Part of the draw of the Brumbies v Reds both times they played was that they were both top of the table clashes. Once SR AU gives way to a full TT we will likely never have two top of the table Aus teams going head to head again, let alone twice in one season! The Brumbies Reds game will totally lose its thrill compared to what it has become. You certainly won't get 20,000 to that game again. Before SR AU, no one even noticed their rivalry. And this is only the second year of SR AU! The rivalry and crowd numbers will only grow with SR AU. That's exactly what rugby in Aus needs right now. I don't get it. If it ends up as two conferences of 6 teams each, with an extra round of local derbies, it still equals all the Aus teams end up playing each other home and away + playing all the Kiwi teams once. Only difference is, it becomes like old SR and will turn fans off again. Why not just stick to what we have now, which is the same, except it is 10x better for Aus rugby, with so many good news stories, and an Aus winner of the grand final, and makes the TT comp afterwards so much more anticipated and exciting. If it ends up just a 12 team single round robin, that's not enough home games for each SR team. But with SR AU followed by TT, every team is guaranteed 8 home games a season minimum. That's ideal. You can't fit any more. I know combining SR AU and SR Ao has got to do with having more games to sell each weekend. But this was the downfall of old SR. We need RA to be brave enough to do what's best for rugby in Aus. We are finally on the right path. Let's not give it away too early.