FFS, the Tahs by any standard have played stunningly good, exciting and lethally effective attacking rugby these two first rounds. It's been a joy to consume as a viewer or for any thoughtful fan of the game. Just as was watching the Reds play for most of 2010 and 2011, and in a small handful of their games in 2012 and 2013 (vs the Chiefs twice and the Tahs twice). Cheika is clearly doing a superb job in his second year in all of team culture, selections, skill development and mode of general play.
Meanwhile, the Reds' manifest decline in most of these parameters since early 2012 continues its steady march into a state of uneven mediocrity where the current appearance is of a team that will only be able to beat weaker teams, or the best teams on their occasional off days. This pattern has been steadily building, it's nothing new. Only the most blind Reds' fans are failing to recognise the core problems in the team now evident over such an extended period. No one could surely assess that the appalling standard of Reds' forwards technique and consistency, poor attacking guile, hapless kicking, and loose defence vs the Tahs with only 5 points resulting was the hallmark of a well-coached team improving on, for example, the woeful and similar collapse the Reds displayed against the Cru in the 2013 finals round (when the Cru adopted tactics and a game style very similar v the Reds to that of the Tahs on Saturday). The central issue is one of whether R Graham is a part-perpetrator of this gradual downtrend trend, or the sustainable fixer of it. We'll know soon enough, by about Round 6-7 or so I'd guess.
If anyone here surmises that we all don't have a huge, long-term vested interest in the Tahs bringing back economically viable crowd levels and, hopefully, winning this year's S15 as part of this process, they simply do not grasp the seriousness of the code's financial plight in 2014. Has Cheika arrived in the nick of time, or 3 years or so too late, is the burning question of the day regarding the Tahs' business revival prospects. The answer, for us rugby lovers, is scarily uncertain.
Spitting bile at the alleged largesse the ARU has doled out to the Tahs conveniently forgets to mention the huge multi-million $ emergency bailout the Reds had to obtain in 2009 in order to avoid bankruptcy after the most egregious of local QLD rugby management failures and long-dated incompetence in responsibly running the QRU to that point.
If the Tahs sink as a business (and they are perilously close to that), with the ARU almost totally out of spare funds for large bail-outs, the whole of Aus rugby will be threatened as the cost of resurrecting such a major franchise may not be fundable with such a small fan base and within the context of the football-saturated Sydney market as it is today. The code with a vacated NSW S15 franchise - with all the resulting consequences coupled with the Wallabies' base in decline - could well be fatal for the ARU as a whole.
