One thing you can say about the Waratahs’ season to date: it’s been anything but ordinary. Record scores, booing in the stands, fan forums, reality TV shows—you name it, they’ve pioneered it, good and bad. The latest task is to see just how many reserve players you can fill a team with and still hope to compete in the finals of a SupeRugby competition.
The injury clusterfuck du jour—following on from Wallabies Al Baxter and Tatafro Polota-Nau falling out on the weekend—was G&GR’s own Luke Burgess, who managed to bust his hand at training on Tuesday. Burgo’s Tracy Chapman mix tape obviously pushed him over the top.
These losses means John Ulugia and Paddy Ryan come into the front rank, and Josh Holmes takes the duty of chucking the ball under their legs into the second row. To fill the spaces on the bench, Brendan McKibbin comes in with Australian Sevens captain Bernard Foley and Manly Marlins hooker Elvis Taione.
Oh yeah, did I mention backup fly-half Daniel Halangahu? Well, he’s done his hammy as well, so in what I believe could be the worst consequence of all of this, Kurtley Beale has to come in from being the world’s best fullback to do duty as an above average fly-half.
What does all this mean? Well, check out the two Waratah teams below. The one on the left will be playing on Saturday, the one in the middle won’t be. Which do you reckon would win if they played each other? For comparison, I’ve stuck in the Auckland Blues team they’ll be playing.
| Position | Available XV | Unavailable XV | Auckland Blues |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Benn Robinson | Sekope Kepu | Charlie Faumuina |
| 2 | John Ulugia | Tatafu Polota-Nau Damien Fitzpatrick | Keven Mealamu (c) |
| 3 | Paddy Ryan | Al Baxter | John Afoa |
| 4 | Kane Douglas | Cam Jowitt | Anthony Boric |
| 5 | Sitaleki Timani | Dan Vickerman (qualifying games) | Ali Williams |
| 6 | Dean Mumm | Ben Mowen | Jerome Kaino |
| 7 | Phil Waugh [c] | Pat McCutcheon | Luke Braid |
| 8 | Dave Dennis | Wycliff Palu | Peter Saili |
| 9 | Josh Holmes | Luke Burgess | Alby Mathewson |
| 10 | Kurtley Beale | Daniel Halangahu | Stephen Brett |
| 11 | Sosene Anesi | Tom Kingston (U20s) | Lachie Munro |
| 12 | Tom Carter | Berrick Barnes | Luke McAlister |
| 13 | Ryan Cross | Rob Horne | Benson Stanley |
| 14 | Atieli Pakalani | Brackin Karauria-Henry (injured?) | Joe Rokocoko |
| 15 | Lachie Turner | Drew Mitchell | Jared Payne |
| 16 | Elvis Taione (NSW debut) | Tom McCartney | |
| 17 | Jeremy Tilse | Tevita Mailau | |
| 18 | Pat OConnor | Chris Lowrey | |
| 19 | Chris Alcock | Daniel Braid | |
| 20 | Hugh Perrett | Chris Smylie | |
| 21 | Brendan McKibbin | Winston Stanley | |
| 22 | Bernard Foley (NSW debut) | Sherwin Stowers |
It’s fair to say that injury-wise, it’s a disaster for the Tahs. But before writing them straight off, let’s note that the All Black count for the Blues’ walk-on team is nine, versus six Wallabies for the Tahs (and the one-cap All Black Sos Anesi!)—so in that respect it’s not a total mismatch. On top of that the Blues’ recent form is far from sterling; they’ve lost four out of their last five games.
If you look across the Blues stats, they’re middle-to-upper end in most things, being a strong running side. Their weakness, as we discussed with Richard Graham on this week’s podcast, is the scrum and line-out set piece. These are areas the Tahs—or at least the A-ish team—have been solid at this year.
The answer therefore is to structure the game as much as possible and frustrate this free-running team with the meat-grinding forward running game and punishing defence that took the Brumbies (another running side) apart last weekend.
Convinced? Perhaps not totally, but there is a good reason to turn the TV on tonight and cheer for one of the two Aussie teams left in the comp, because if you think they’ll take Phil Waugh out of Super Rugby without a fight, you’ve got another thing coming.
