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Reddy!
Bob Davidson (42)
Pff, Rocket was terrific on the wing. Compare him to his debut season and he is a pretty classy player now in my opinion.
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daz
Guest
Agree. Rocket showed some good touch and some excellent run, as usual. He just needs to tighten up on his finishing to be considered a class winger, but all in all, he is doing ok.
Scotty
David Codey (61)
I guess I was responding to others posts as well. Some tahs supporters on this thread have rightly said that the reds performance was not clinical. I just wanted to counter that there were elements to the performance that were impressive and improved on previous weeks. Something that has been glossed over due to how bad the rebels were and the fact that the reds probably left another 2 tries on the park.
I agree with that Scotty. The Reds definitely improved in a lot of areas this week. They competed at the breakdown, Tackled harder, and gave Cooper more room. There field position was better and kicking out of hand was good.
Why do you think Daly is keeping Holmes out of the run on side?
There was a big improvement from the Reds, no doubt, as I and others noted. I really want to see a ruthless streak in Aus teams, from Super Rugby up, where they put the opposition to the sword if and when they can. They could have put a few more tries on. It is easy to gloss over how good a team is when the opposition is poor, but equally it is easy to gloss over deficiencies in a winning team when they do it so easily. I should know, the Tahs have had more false dawns than I care to remember. When did an Aus team of any description do what the Crusaders have done 3 weeks in a row, and pummel 3 supposedly decent teams comprehensively? That's why they win titles. If the Reds can do that, I will be happy. Smash the Cheetahs next week. I'd rather see them winning than losing.
disco
Chilla Wilson (44)
Well I'm looking forward to playing the Saffas & Kiwis now as the derbies can sometimes be a bit of an arm wrestle although the cheetahs will be looking to swamp & slow down front foot ball on the weekend.
Reddy!
Bob Davidson (42)
I think the Reds will benefit from having Robinson starting, and Quirk and Gill on the bench. The Waratahs didn't have a genuine fetcher last night in the absence of Waugh and convincingly lost the battle of the breakdown against the Cheetahs 7, name doesn't come to mind, but you know who I'm talking about.
Well, he was actually the 6, I can't recall who the 7 was. But, of course, Brussouw was the pest. A very, very good pest.
R
Richard D. James
Guest
Six is Seven in Saffa rugby though
I know.
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Richard D. James
Guest
sorry, should probably read thing a little more carefully 
Scotty
David Codey (61)
I have no idea. Holmes has been good every time he gets some minutes and daly really needs to sort out his body position in the scrum. It is ridiculous that one of the shorter props going around keeps packing with their shoulders too low (or hips too high).
Scotty
David Codey (61)
This is a long season and people are getting a little too excited by the saders. They normally build into a season slower but I think the earthquake has changed their mentality a bit. The rails wont fall off but I would be surprised if they keep this level of performance up.
Of course they still have richie to come back though.
Godfrey
Phil Hardcastle (33)
Agreed. The areas that I thought really let him down last year were his defence and attitude towards contact. Now, his defence is actually quite good (in most cases) and he's pretty damn effective at chasing kicks and pressuring his opponents.
spectator
Bob Davidson (42)
The Family and I went along to Suncorp stadium last night to watch The take on The Melbourne Rebels. We were confident of a win, Gillian known as Redslug on Superbru had picked Queensland to win by 5 and I was a little more confident to the tune of 12 points mainly due to Mark Gerrard's injury which I believed would have a significant effect on Melbourne's game. What follow was a 53 to 3 massacre that seemingly came out of nowhere.
As a Reds fan it would be easy to fall into the trap of praising my side for a comprehensive display. Although I believe they played better than they have in any other game this year. There are still questions to be asked about the scrum and ball security in particular. Not to mention the hole that seems to be opening at out centre that is screaming for someone to fill. Queensland had clearly worked on their structure and have found ways to give Quade Cooper sometime to use his many attacking skills. And it was clear that the "cut them in half" defence we all loved to see last year was back. There will be a few sore old bones in The Rebels camp today.
But the real question is what happened to the Rebels side I watched last week. They started out pretty well. But the only points they registered were off the back of 3 successive Reds penalties effectively pushing them down the field to within kicking distance. After the first 15 minutes they quickly fell away and were continually pushed back in defence and attack. I can't put my finger on the reason. They clearly have gifted players and a world cup winning coach. But they don't seem to have a real plan. Maybe it is their very international flavour that is killing them. You know the Bulls will play Jurassic Rugby, The Crusaders will smother you and the Reds want to run. But what style of Rugby do a bunch of guys from a dozen different countries with different cultures, playing styles and life styles play. The Bulls, Crusaders and any other club team in any competition you care to mention have a collective mentality. They generally have a core of guys that a coming from the same place. And these guys instil a culture into the rest of them. It's like if you think of the Highlanders you immediately think of huge guys, Mullets and Jimmy Cowan. The Bulls, huge guys, Victor and flat track bully Botha. Now think of the Rebels. Keep thinking. That's right. Nothing! There is no group mentality. No chutzpah. Nothing. How do you fix that? How do you melt down 30 individuals and build a dynasty out of them? Don't ask the Sparky from The Gold Coast? He has no idea. If he did he'd be making a lot of money out of it and not spending his Saturday afternoon writing this.
Back to the game. There were a couple of decisions during the game that clearly upset myself and a couple of other people sitting near me. I have reviewed the tape and am willing to apologise to Stuart Dickinson for my criticism. But unfortunately while I reviewed the incidents I noticed your lack of control of the breakdown. Players running full steam into Rucks and using their bodies as flying battering rams clearly doesn't cut it. And while we clearly benefited from you losing this part of your game. I hope you take this small critique on board and take a look at it.
Taking a quick look at the Reds Team there are still clearly issues with the front row. Daly at Loosehead is okay when he hits his bind but he seems to miss it a lot, he also seems to be tight in the hip flexors and this seems to stop him getting lower in the hips than the shoulders. This is a structural problem that would take a lot of work to correct. I unlike others can see little wrong with Fainga'a or Slipper in the Front row.
Adam Wallace-Harrison seems like a very smart buy by Ewen McKenzie. He and to a lesser extent Rob Simmons destroyed the Rebels Linout. Both had strong games around the field.
Beau Robinson continued his strong form. He deserves his contract. Leroy Houston had the strongest game I have seen him play. I wish he would use his bulk more. Higginbotham was everywhere.
Genia and Cooper both made a few mistakes, but you can expect this from players who handle the ball so often. Cooper was the official man of the match and his kicking and passing was pretty much spot on all game.
Anthony Fainga'a had his best game of the season. Ben Tapuai look out of position at 13. Digby Ioane and Rod Davies both ran hard and looked for work and Ben Lucas looks more at home at 15 every game.
Michael Harris had the commentators screaming about his Australian Grandmother but I have never met a born and raised Kiwi yet who had the slightest interest in a wallaby jersey. So I wouldn't be counting on that any time soon. I would still ask though. At 186 cm and 96 kilos he certainly knows how to throw his weight around and his kicking seems inch perfect.
Radike Samo was Radike Samo like. Just love watching him play. So did the 5-year-old 2 rows in front of me who couldn't believe his hair when he came up on the big screen.
I wonder if this game help or hinders the Reds this year. It will certainly help their confidence but I wonder if it is built on a very shaky base. Time will tell.
Well this has been by far my biggest post on GaGR so I think I will leave it right there.
Sully
An excellent post Sully. Agree with most of your observations about the game and like your spin on the 'culture' thing.
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daz
Guest
I might be on my pat malone here, but Huxley again proved to me that at 15 he simply cannot cut the mustard at Super level. To say they missed Gerrad is an understatement of the highest order.
And I second spectators comment; good post Sully. I might add that Harris had me screaming as well. The face-fend and side stepping for his first try was great to watch.
Question: Will Chambers be recalled this week in place of Tapuai?
And I second spectators comment; good post Sully. I might add that Harris had me screaming as well. The face-fend and side stepping for his first try was great to watch.
Question: Will Chambers be recalled this week in place of Tapuai?
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