Author: Stuart Fazakerley

A brilliant second half by the Melbourne Rebels couldn’t make up for the mistakes of the first, going down 36-32 to the Blues in an 11-try pie-fest in Auckland. They’re Jekyll and Hyde, these Rebels. Depending on when you switched on the television, you would have seen some of the most laughable attempts at defence possible, as opponents just waltzed through the outside channel to score, or some of the most exciting attacking plays in the competition, made possible only by a team willing to throw everything they’ve got at the opposition. I wrote last week that the Rebels were…

In one of the most entertaining matches of 2013, the Chiefs escaped AAMI Park with a 39-33 win. The Melbourne Rebels lost the match, but started to win back a city. Seventy minutes into the game, something changed at AAMI Park. The Rebels were throwing everything they had at the defending champions, refusing to accept that they were beaten. The crowd fired up, cheering their team to the unlikeliest of victories. The famed atmosphere of the ‘Stockade’, dormant as the Rebels struggled through the opening half of the season, had returned with force. This was not the result they wanted,…

The Melbourne Rebels almost did it again. You can read the above sentence one of two ways. A statement in support of a club who nearly followed up the unlikeliest of victories against the Crusaders at AAMI Park in 2012, with the unlikeliest of sequels today at AMI Stadium, leading until the last 15 minutes before penalising themselves out of the game and allowing the hosts to sneak home. Or in a more sobering light, acknowledging that the same club has made almost winning an art form. The Rebels have acknowledged several times this year that close enough was no…

Tonight, a team whose province had fought tooth and nail for years to enter Super Rugby, with their doubters in droves and their backs to the wall, played with the intensity and grit of 22 men who would die for their jersey. They forced their opposition to give up the match, and took a deserved win. They were the Southern Kings. When the Melbourne Rebels defeated the Western Force for the first time in 2011, I took it as justice. We had defeated the side who had cost us our rightful place in the competition. The Force didn’t deserve the…

After a comprehensive smacking at the hands of the Sharks, followed by a drunken bust-up that shook the club to its core, the Melbourne Rebels needed a performance against the Cheetahs to allay fears about the performance of the team, and the stability of the franchise. It didn’t come. The Match The Rebels made the most of a dour opening in a rain-drenched Free State Stadium. While their scrum showed weakness early, the Rebels were energetic at the breakdown, debutant Jordy Reid showing why he was recently re-signed before playing a game, with two excellent turnovers. Defence was the name…

The Melbourne Rebels ended Sunday in damage control. Unfortunately, their ten-try drubbing at the hands of the Sharks in Durban overnight was only half the story

Two of Australian Rugby’s most polarising figures, best breds James O’Connor and

When they fell to the Reds last week, the New South Wales Waratahs lost their ninth straight game. For the Rebels, their loss to the Brumbies was the sixth from their last seven games. Someone’s due for a win. In the first half of last week’s match, the Waratahs were put in their place by an attacking Reds outfit, but fought back valiantly, throwing the ball wide and running at the Reds. Incredibly, they came back from a 17-3 deficit to tie the game on the hour.  Just when it looked like they had momentum, however, they snapped, and fell…

The two undefeated teams of Super Rugby will meet at AAMI Park on Friday night, as the Brumbies travel to meet the Melbourne Rebels in the second round of the 2013 season. It was a solid, if scrappy, performance from the Melbourne boys against the Western Force last week. The Force proved more than a handful for the first twenty minutes, piling on eleven unanswered points. From then on, however, the Rebels composed themselves, regained and held possession, running away in the second half to win 30-23. Nick Phipps was a livewire in attack — with a vastly improved kicking…

For the first time in the history of the Super competition an Australian expansion franchise has won in the first round. The Rebels overcame a slow start and a spirited Force to kick off Super Rugby XVIII with four points, but the faces on the hosts after the game said it all: improvement required. THE MATCH Both teams ran out to a spectacular-looking night at AAMI Park with many seeing the match — pitting an improving Rebels outfit against a Force team missing some key players — as a foregone conclusion.  However, it was the Force who controlled the tempo…

Super Rugby XVIII kicks off in Melbourne on Friday night, with the hometown Rebels, boosted by an injury-free off-season and the arrival of a sea of new players, taking on expansion rivals the Western Force. Melbourne are widely tipped to continue their good form against the Westerners, but if anyone knows the danger of a team of unknowns pulling an upset from nowhere, it’s the hosts. One could shine, the other must rise. Stay tuned for another nail-biter. ‘The honeymoon is over’ — it’s what I’ve been told by opposition supporters countless times since the start of the year, and it…

Tomorrow at 9am, the NSW Waratahs will make a major announcement, expected to be the signing of former AFL lightweight NRL superstar, Israel Folau, to a one-year contract. Journalists, puns at the ready…. The 23-year-old centre winger ruck full-forward will join his third professional code in four years. Debuting with the Melbourne Storm in 2007, he was a revelation in league circles. Scoring 21 tries, the most in a debut season, he won the 2007 Dally M Rookie of the Year and the RLIF International Newcomer of the Year, and was part of the Storm’s premiership winning-the-last-game-of-the-year team. He was given…

The Melbourne Rebels have announced considerable changes to their squad in preparation for the 2013 Super Rugby season, with 14 new faces joining the nascent franchise for their third crack at the title. UPDATE 19/10: Two major changes to the Rebels’ squad, with yesterday’s signing of prop Pauliasi Manu seemingly completing the squad, only to have a spot opened by the immediate departure of Ryan Tyrrell. Manu made his ITM Cup debut with Auckland in 2008 and has spent the past two seasons in the Blues squad. The 24 year old has represented the Auckland franchise five times. Rebels coach…

The South African Rugby Union has confirmed that the Southern Kings, based in Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape, will replace the Johannesburg-based Lions for the 2013 Super Rugby season. You might remember the Kings as the franchise that, perhaps optimistically, looked to take the fifth place in the Australian conference when the 15th Super licence was awarded in 2010 — a position that, after arbitration, went to the Melbourne Rebels. Since losing the bid, they have been consistently lobbying SARU for a place in the league, which they were awarded in February of this year. Since that announcement, SARU…

The Stormers finished the Super Rugby season on top of the table with a 26-21 win against the Melbourne Rebels overnight. They were, however, made to work for it by a Victorian team who tried everything to send captain Stirling Mortlock out a winner. As the sole Melbourne correspondent amongst the GAGR alumni, and one of few in the ‘professional’ realm, I see it as my duty to occasionally put balanced reporting aside in order to pump up the Rebels’ tyres a bit. Therefore, I have written about how impressed I have been with several performances this year, whether or…

For anyone who still has encyclopaedias, open them up to ‘F’ and then look up ‘fait accompli’. In the definition, you might just find reference to this very match. A battered and bruised Melbourne Rebels reach the finish line of their second season, facing a Stormers outfit on top of the South African conference. To earn a home semi-final, the Stormers need only to register a point against the Victorian franchise, and given the Chiefs’ loss to the Hurricanes, a win will see them finish top of the combined table. The Kaapstad boys have not come through the preliminary stages…

Attention spans are like gold these days, so for this match, I’ll keep it brief. After squandering a 24-0 lead to trail by 5 with minutes to go, the Lions fought back to claim just their third win of the season, 37-32 against the travelling Melbourne Rebels. However, the close loss was enough to guarantee that the dubious honour of bottoming out the league, and Australian conference, would not be heading south again this year. At the start of the match it looked to be history repeating for the visitors, who had lost six from six on the road before…

For your consideration, Super Rugby presents a battle solely for pride, between a team whose promising middle of the season dismantled as quick as it appeared, and a team whose entire existence in the competition is being questioned as we speak. Umm… set your alarms? I’m an excitable guy, and very easy to impress. For example, the other day I bought a ticket to see Rick Astley live in concert. It arrived this afternoon, and I found out that Rick’s supporting acts are to be Wa Wa Nee and The Chantoozies. I was stoked, and, as of this moment, I…

The Queensland Reds continued their march towards a championship defence on Friday

Tonight the Rebelution bid farewell to their AAMI Park abode for another year, facing the Reds in their last home game of 2012. The Queenslanders will be heavily backed to dispatch of the Victorians, but with a series of high-profile finales, including Australian rugby legend Stirling Mortlock, the Rebels have never had more to play for. It’s been an emotional bye month for the southern capital, with each week marked by a different retirement or announcement that a player is moving on. In all, four of the Rebels will wave goodbye to Super Rugby on Australian soil: Mortlock, Al Campbell,…