24 June 2025
Good morning G&GRs and welcome to another Tuesday. We’re into that interesting period in the rugby calendar when Super Rugby has finished and tests haven’t started. But it is exciting, the Lions have arrived in Perth, looking remarkably tanned from their camp in Portugal, and they’ll be keen to put a positive marker in the ground against the Force this Saturday night. If you need to catch up on last weekend’s rugby games, Bris has you covered in the Monday news which you can find here. If you’re looking for a deeper dive of the Lions opening game against Argentina, you can find Keith’s excellent review here.
There’s always news to cover, and if there isn’t any genuine news we’ll do our best to create something to talk about. For today we’re going to cover some standings in the Brisbane men’s and women’s competitions, some Wallaroos news, some Lions news and a summary of the Wallabies team of the week from throughout the Super Rugby season.
Brisbane Club Rugby
Round 12 in the Hospital Cup saw 10 Reds players take the field for their club sides including Seru Uru, Isaac Henry, and Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, among others. The full list and their clubs is shown in the following graphic.
After 12 rounds the ladder is starting to show a clear top 4 with Easts, Brothers, Wests and Souths; however, the next 4 teams will be thinking they can make a run to the semi-finals. It’s probably a bridge too far for Sunnybank, but you never know. To be fair to Sunnybank, they did have a bye on the weekend. Other teams that are a game behind are Brothers and Bond Uni. The ladder after 12 rounds looks like this.
In the Founders Cup, there’ve been three rounds played, and the bye system means that there are only three games played each week. Teams have played 3, 2 or 1 games (Brothers with 1). Wests and Sunnybank are setting the pace with 3 from 3 for Wests and 2 from 2 for Sunnybank. It’s always hard to read too much into early season form, but you have to finish at the top of the table, so why not start there. The table as it stands after 3 rounds is:
Wallaroos Rugby
The Wallaroos don’t play again 26 July and 1 August when they take on the Welsh before heading to the World Cup; however, Australia A are playing this weekend against Manusina Samoa at Viking Park in Canberra. The Wallaroos will go on to play Manusina Somao in their opening match at the World Cup so this match has more than the usual riding on it for an Australian A match. There are no team sheets yet, but the advertising has Maya Stewart on Instagram, so hopefully she can make a return from injury this week. It’ll be interesting to see who else gets a game. Good luck to Australia A as they look to continue to build momentum in an important year.
Lions News
Not really much to cover from the Lions perspective, they’ve arrived in Australia after a narrow loss to Argentina in Dublin that saw them unable to convert what seemed like 35 minutes of territory and possession in the second half into enough points to win the game. There’s been plenty of commentary about the loss and whether it will spark the Lions into action, we’ll start to find out on Saturday when they take on the Western Force in Perth. The Force will be strengthened by 5 of their Wallaby squad members staying in Perth and available to take on the Lions. We’ll cover the team announcements when they happen, but here’s hoping that the Force put on a show and really get stuck in against the touring side.
Speaking of touring sides, you can look up the British & Irish Lions Touring Party here and see that the Lions have brought a touring party of 45 staff in addition to their coaching team and the playing group. Of note is physio Rob Stewart from the RFU who has been on every tour since 2005. How good is his job?
They seem to (as suggested by James Horwill at the Reds season launch) bring with them legal counsel in the form of a Director of Legal and Risk, but hopefully they have a quiet time on tour and don’t need to visit the judiciary with any of their players.
Super Rugby Australia team summary
So, the Super Rugby season has been and gone and I have compiled a team based on the teams that I selected from each round, except week 6 where I didn’t pick a team because I hadn’t watched enough of the games. To pull together the team and squad I took the team from each week and awarded two points to the starting players each week, and one point for the bench players each week. Then the player from each position with the most points made the starting side, and the next best made the bench. The exception was the locks, where I picked the top two overall.
Some interesting points to note, injuries have a big impact for some players, and there might be some anti-NSW bias in my weekly selections. So without further ado, here we go:
- Angus Bell – one of the best performing overall, and the most picked front rower. One other thing I noticed was that I wrote, a strong performance in a losing side a lot for Bell.
- Billy Pollard – gets the pick ahead of Richie Asiata, due to being on the TotW 8 times.
- Allan Alaalatoa – no surprises here, even with the calf injury ruling him out for a few games.
- Nick Frost – the most selected lock along with Darcy Swain.
- Darcy Swain – just edges his captain and team mate Jeremy Williams for a starting position.
- Bob Valetini – even with a late start to the season, was irresistible with 7 selections in the last 10 weeks.
- Fraser McReight – may be the red coloured but with the Reds finishing stronger than the Force, got the nod more often than Tizzano at the end of the season.
- Harry Wilson – missed some games with a broken arm, however was picked 7 times.
- Tate McDermott – just gets the nod ahead of Ryan Lonergan, who were the most picked with 12 times (Tate) and 11 times (Lonergan) of any of the Aussie players.
- Tom Lynagh – had some outstanding performances, including the best on ground against the Blues in the Anzac Day round.
- Corey Toole – you can’t fake pace and finishing ability. Though his front on defence would be tested against the large Lions centres.
- Hunter Paisami – gets the nod ahead of Hamish Stewart at 12.
- Len Ikitau – the standout 13 this year with Flook injured for most of the season, however Daugunu also played 13, and Dre Pakeho is one to watch.
- Lachie Anderson – technically had less times picked than Filipo, however Daugunu also accumulated points at 13.
- Mac Grealy – one more point (14) than Tom Wright due to his early season form.
- Richie Asiata – a really strong finish to the season.
- James Slipper – had a quiet start to the season, but built into it and was good when it counted.
- Zane Nonggorr – made the TotW 8 times and was good around the park, his scrummaging was better as well.
- Jeremy Williams – edged out of the second row, but a very good year for the Force captain.
- Tom Hooper – gets the nod on the bench ahead of Carlo Tizzano. But Carlo had a great year and tactics will dictate bench splits. Can play 4, 5, 6, and 8.
- Langi Gleeson – just edges Nic Champion de Crespigny for a 6-2 bench split.
- Ryan Lonergan – a great season.
- Tom Wright – offers versatility on the bench.
Broader squad. In addition to the 23 above, the players that make up the balance of the squad are:
- Tom Robertson – had a good season and can play both sides of the scrum.
- Matt Faessler – looked good until he was injured but hasn’t played for while
- Seru Uru – some good performances in the backrow and can also fill in at lock if needed.
- Nick Champion de Crespigny – had a really good season and earns a spot.
- Carlo Tizzano – could be picked for a more mobile bench split. Definitely earned a spot this year.
- Nic White – the third best performing halfback this year.
- Harry Potter – was the pick of the wingers at times, but injuries and a faltering team don’t help.
- Filipo Daugunu – deserves a spot in the squad and can cover multiple positions from the bench.
- Hamish Stewart – performed strongly all year.
- Andy Muirhead – another good year from Muirhead, however like a lot of Aussie wingers, misses a few tackles.
- Ben Donaldson – not far behind Lynagh in terms of performances at 10 and would provide excellent bench cover.
That makes a squad of 34 players based on the top performers and some extra cover. The notable omissions based on the sum of the team of the week are:
- Noah Lolesio – was in the team of the week twice, maybe deserved more attention given the overall performance of the Brumbies, but was injured early in the season.
- Jake Gordon – didn’t feature in the team of the week at any stage, was injured a bit and then part of a side that couldn’t win key games.
- Joseph Aukuso-Suaalii – was injured too often to make enough appearances. Looked good at times though.
- Taniela Tupou – The big man really struggled for form this year, and I hope he can turn it around in the Wallabies setup. If he’s near his best, the scrum will go better and he will contribute around the field.
- Andrew Kellaway – might be the anti-Waratahs bias, but he seemed to struggle for form this year.
- Alex Hodgman – went well in the middle of the season, and can scrummage, but has been injured at the end of the season.
- James O’Connor – had a good season and ended up in the winning team, but I didn’t pick him very often. Could be great for cover during the Lions series. I’d pick him for the AUNZ invitational and see how he goes.
- Will Skelton – obviously didn’t play Super Rugby. Will be interesting to see if he can make a difference.
- Samu Kerevi – plays in Japan, so no Super Rugby form, but could be a real point of difference at 12 for the Wallabies, great front foot ball and normally beats the first tackler.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
That’s a wrap
That’s a wrap for this week, as always, thanks for reading this far through it, hopefully it’s interesting and look forward to the comments.
Cheers
