Round 12 contained some pretty rubbish rugby, as injury-riddled teams applied desperation tactics to get the points. In the end the Reds and Waratahs walked away with victories, while yet again the Brumbies, Rebels and Force went down. Although it is a bit late, we have the team of the week to announce, which this round is:
Team of the Round:
15 Kurtley Beale – WARATAHS
14 Digby Ioane – REDS
13 Ryan Cross – WARATAHS
12 Christian Lealiifano – BRUMBIES
11 Lachie Turner – WARATAHS
10 Quade Cooper – REDS
9 Will Genia – REDS
8 Ita Vaea – BRUMBIES
7 Beau Robinson – REDS
6 Dave Dennis – WARATAHS
5 Sitaleki Timani – WARATAHS
4 James Horwill – REDS
3 James Slipper – REDS
2 John Ulugia – WARATAHS
1 Benn Robinson – WARATAHS
It is almost all red and blue this week thanks to the derby wins by the Reds and Tahs. A couple of Brumbies pop up despite their loss in the Republic.
In the tight five we have some familiar faces – Robinson, Slipper, Horwill — and a couple of TotR debutants – Ulugia and Timani. Both newbies were standouts in a grafting victory at the SFS on Saturday. Slipper and Horwill put in their usual gutsy efforts. Hugh Pyle was unlucky to miss out.
It’s a tricolour backrow with Dave Dennis, Beau Robinson and Ita Vaea getting the thumbs-up from our selection panel. Each did the hard yards at the breakdown, and were standouts with ball in hand in the looser stuff. Scott Higginbotham, David Pocock and Richard Brown came close.
Genia and Cooper are the halves yet again. Sanchez was outstanding for the Reds, and while Quade wasn’t at his best he showed enough to get the nod ahead of Berrick Barnes and Matt Giteau. We have a couple of new faces in midfield this week in the form of Christian Lealiifano and Ryan Cross. Lilo was adjudged man of the match in a losing side, while Cross had a huge workload and scored the crucial try because he was paying attention when a Kurtley Beale penalty shot bounced off the post.
Lachie Turner, Digby Ioane and Kurtley Beale make up the back three. All were standouts in the local derbies. Turner has visibly upped his game in the absence of Drew Mitchell, while Beale is reveling in the open spaces at 15. Digby was his usual busy self against the Rebels.
Player of the Round:
From the game on Friday night we had two runaway winners in Will Genia and Gareth Delve. They both took their side’s MOTM awards, from James Horwill and Nick Phipps respectively. The game on Saturday night threw up Benn Robinson and David Pocock. Fatcat won in a tight one from Lachie Turner, Pat McCutcheon, Kurtley Beale and Sitaleki Timani, whereas Bam beat out Richard Brown and James O’Connor.
Last but not least we have the Brumbies nominee, who this week is Christian Lealiifano. Ita Vaea and Peter Kimlin were close runners-up.
Try of the Round:
There weren’t many to choose from this week, with our selection coming in from the Saturday night game in the Republic. The Brumbies came out firing against the Sharks and early in the first half scored a cracking length-of-the-field try. Andrew Smith caught a Patrick Phibbs clearance, offloaded back to Phibbs, who passed to Ben Alexander, who put in a perfectly timed ball to Christian Lealiifano, who sprinted the remaining 50 metres to score untouched. Have a look for yourself:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkatvxPJVis[/youtube]
Moment of the Round:
This is the point of the season where teams are really starting to struggle with injuries, and the Rebels are no exception. They were hard hit on Friday night, and the worst came when pivot Jimmy Hilgendorf went down early with what looked to be a serious injury (turns out it isn’t too bad and he may play this weekend). Wouldn’t it be great if the Rebels had an internationally capped five-eighth as back-up? Well, they did, but he was cutting a forlorn figure in the stands, licking his wounds after being banned by the team after a couple of big nights in Sydney. The Rebels suffered badly in Cipriani’s absence, which should end sooner rather than later.
What was your moment of the week?
