The Wrap: Reds are better prepared for NZ challenge this time, and will need to be

At the completion of Friday night’s match between the Reds and the Rebels, when the Reds snuck home 36-32, I asked coach Brad Thorn if, after enduring a few rough days being bounced around in the media, weeks like this one were a reminder of how much fun it was to be a player.

Not a man easily given to instant overt animation, Thorn’s face lit up, and with a grin as wide as the Taieri River he said, “That’s a great question. Yes, being a player really rocks!”.

Now 47, one gets the impression that the only thing stopping a fit and hungry Thorn from still turning out for the Reds is a sense of fairness in allowing young locks like Angus Blyth and Ryan Smith their opportunities. Instead Thorn lives vicariously through seeing his players, having been thrown to the wolves in South Africa before they were ready, now with the developed skills and experience to claim undeniable top-dog status in Australian rugby.

Whether things will “rock” just as sweetly over the next few weeks, as Australian franchises are forced to muscle up against their New Zealand counterparts, remains to be seen. But compared to last year, when the Reds went “all-in” on winning Super Rugby AU and were too emotionally and physically spent for what followed, there is no question that they are far better prepared this time around.

They’ll need to be. The flabbiness that was evident for large periods of the match against the Rebels won’t cut the mustard against the extra pace and intensity that New Zealand’s best sides bring to the table.

The Reds’ best is very good. Injected after half-time, Taniela Tupou’s contribution was typically telling, and Fraser McReight’s lightning steal to turn a thrilling Rebels attack into a runaway try at the other end was one of the moments of the season.

But they were also well handled for long periods by an admittedly much-improved Rebels team that in the end could easily have taken the win had a few things fallen their way.

One of those things was referee Damon Murphy keeping his whistle in his pocket for the final 90 seconds of the match. To be clear, it’s never a bad thing when referees put the whistle away, but the modern convention, favoured by Murphy’s colleagues, is to frown upon running the clock down with passive hit-ups and to go hard on deliberate sealing off.

Rebels fans were also left to ponder the irony of their side mounting their best attacking phases of the season only to see them result in tries 80 metres behind them. It was cruel reward for powerhouse lock Matt Philip and their impressive maul, but not unlike the Reds of three and four seasons ago, these are the types of losses that cement the character that will translate into wins for a developing side further down the track.

(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Rugby also rocks for Dalton Papalii right now after he led the Blues to a thrilling win against the Crusaders 27-23. The cliché of the moment is “Test-match intensity”, and so it was for the second week running for the Blues, who again rose to the physical and emotional level required to win these big matches, in doing so stamping themselves as favourites for the title.

This match seemingly had everything: a superbly conceived and executed first-phase move off a scrum that put Will Jordan onto Mark Telea’s weak shoulder; a brilliant, immediate response from Telea, Beauden Barrett and Finlay Christie; Papalii charging for the line like a runaway steer; a red card for the home captain; and a heroic last-ditch save.

The home crowd rose in unison as Richie Mo’unga’s looped pass hit a spare man on the right wing for what looked certain to be the winning score. But instead of Sevu Reece, it was young lock Dominic Gardner, running in quicksand, who was smashed over the sideline at the death by Rieko Ioane and Papalii.

Bragging rights thus fall to the Blues and also to Barrett over Mo’unga in the battle of the No. 10s. Barrett had the better of the running play, although the quality of Mo’unga’s exit kicking was something to behold.

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The red card was an easy decision for referee Mike Fraser; Scott Barrett was halfway to the showers by the time the card came out of Fraser’s pocket. What will make things difficult for Barrett at the judiciary is that the player he followed through on and hit in the head with his shoulder, Alex Hodgman, didn’t have the ball. Plus, as Michael Hooper will attest, he has priors.

Although this year differs from last in that there are no country or conference finals at the midpoint thanks to the way things fell with a COVID-disrupted schedule, this match became exactly that. If there happens to be a Blues-Reds rematch for the title in a couple of months, I can’t imagine anybody will be complaining.

(Photo by Peter Meecham/Getty Images)

The Chiefs enjoyed the Saturday sun and the drop-in class, welcoming back All Blacks lock Tupou Va’ai and accommodating Moana Pasifika 45-12. This marks the end of Moana Pasifika’s horrid run of matches squeezed into a compromised schedule and invites a fascinating question for the second half of the competition: how will they fare against Australian opposition?

After having his colours lowered the week before against the Blues, Pita-Gus Sowakula found himself back in the limelight, lauded by the Stan home studio crew during a “highlights from earlier in the day” package during a break in the Force-Waratahs coverage. Indeed Sowakula’s one-handed offload to set up a try was impressive.

The only trouble was that Sowakula didn’t play in this match, and the action he was featured in looked to be in suspiciously darker conditions than what this match was played in. Had Hamilton been subject to a sudden solar eclipse, the Cheifs sneaking Sowakula on then to weave his magic while Moana Pasifika weren’t looking?

Dunedin gave us the battle of the good Jackson Garden-Bachop versus the not-so-good Jackson Garden-Bachop, and the good Thomas Umaga-Jensen versus the also pretty good Thomas Umaga-Jensen.

In the end it was the ‘also pretty good’ Umaga-Jensen who stole the limelight with an outrageous one-handed flick inside which set up a try for Max Hicks, although the Highlanders came up agonisingly short, probing for three minutes and through 20 phases before Saula Ma’u failed to convince referee Angus Mabey that he had grounded the ball after the siren to win the match.

(Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

After last week’s narrow loss, perhaps this 22-21 victory was some form of justice for Ardie Savea and his Hurricanes, although, with the exception of brother Julian, his side struggled all day to overcome a tenacious defence.

This wasn’t a high-quality match, although things warmed up in the second half, leading to a tense, exciting finish. Here’s how the commentary on the SANZAAR website recorded those final few heart-thumping, edge-of-the-seat, minutes:

A series of passes by Hurricanes results in a try for Aiden Morgan.
The ball swings towards the posts but floats to the right. Jordie Barrett will have to readjust the radar.
Marty Banks comes off.
Scott Gregory comes on.
Gareth Evans comes off.
Hugh Renton comes on.
It’s all over! The referee has blown their whistle to end the game.

Anyone who has live blogged a rugby match knows it’s no snack. But reading this, I couldn’t imagine a match blog or commentary anywhere so devoid of emotion and so out of kilter with what was actually happening on the pitch.

That was until I checked out the blog commentary from the Blues-Crusaders match. Remember, this was Super Rugby’s two best teams duking it out toe to toe for 80 minutes. Thrill-a-minute stuff, with the Crusaders hammering away at the Blues line, desperately searching for the winning score.

Blues decide to make a substitution, with Ricky Riccitelli getting some game time.
Blues decide to make a substitution, with Finlay Christie being replaced.
Blues decide to make a substitution, with Taufa Funaki getting some game time.
A gap opened in the defence and Leicester Fainga’anuku took full advantage.
It’s all over! The referee has blown their whistle to end the game.

That’s not the work of a person who knows or understands rugby. That’s a Russian bot.

As we’ve repeated for years now, Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby stand condemned for not resourcing SANZAAR properly or partnering with people who actually know how to engage fans and sell the sport.

The final match in Perth was over almost as soon as it had started, the Waratahs jumping to a 24-point lead in 17 minutes, including the easiest try Michael Hooper will ever score in his career.

That the Force turned what was a thrashing into an arm-wrestle was no small achievement, even if the score eventually blew out to 41-24. What the history books won’t record is an asterisk for the Force losing six frontline players, plus their coach, in the lead-up.

That’s an unfortunate scenario, signalled in this column as far back as Week 1, when the Western Australia government’s desire to shield itself from COVID was always likely to come back and bite the Force, Eagles and Dockers midseason.

(Photo by Will Russell/Getty Images)

While Scott Barrett’s red card was straightforward, the weekend’s other red card, to Highlander Josh Dickson for contact to the head of Tevita Mafileo with his shoulder, provided a lightbulb moment of sorts.

Dickson was in the defensive line, a little hunched and mostly passive. It was Mafileo who initiated the contact, breaking through another tackle, losing significant height as he did so. This was as much a case of his head striking Dickson’s shoulder as the other way around.

Rugby is in the process of minimising this type of contact so that Mafileo and other players don’t suffer brain injuries that could have been prevented from occurring.

No sane person would argue against that objective, yet cases like this highlight a massive disconnect between the objective and the blunt mechanism being used to force change.

It is plainly clear that an abundance of red cards is not sufficient in and of itself to change outcomes. For the change that is being sought to actually occur, there needs to be an all-encompassing approach that has at its core coaching and stiffer suspensions for the worst offenders.

We know that players can tackle low and, where required, can tackle passively. As amateurs we did this for years. When a bigger opponent charged at you, you stayed low, placed your head to one side as you grabbed their legs, and let them fall back over you.

The reason players today don’t do this is because they are coached not to yield an inch. And because everybody loves a big hit. The collision is the altar at which professional rugby is won or lost.

Without a fundamental rewrite of how rugby is played – which is code for elimination of the power upright tackle – we will continue to see a raffle where some tickets are marked ‘wow, great hit’, and others ‘sorry, red card’.

If Highlanders coach Tony Brown had spent the last few weeks insisting that his players tackle low, then Dickson is rightfully at fault for ignoring those instructions. But Brown isn’t foolish enough to take it upon himself to be the first coach to change things up and consign himself to instant defeat.

It is World Rugby’s job to not only clearly communicate what its objectives are around head contact but also lead and facilitate change, not through confusing guidelines and processes and ham-fisted, inconsistent sanctions but by seeking and obtaining the buy-in of the world’s coaches and players.

That is, ‘What is it we are trying to achieve and how are we going to do it?’.

The game is where it is today as a result of evolution. It can and will evolve further, as now it must, with urgency, because of what we know about concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

But it needs more than people shouting ‘the players must learn’. What precisely is it that they must learn? In what overall context?

Arguing the toss about 20-minute red cards misses the point entirely. Until the people who actually play the game are shown how it must change, are taught to unlearn everything they have been taught, safe in the knowledge that all coaches have agreed to a new paradigm, that referees are aligned, then everything else will continue to be a frustrating sequence of tinkering at the edges.

And that’s a continuing scenario that doesn’t rock at all.