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If he hadn't missed months with a shoulder injury maybe, but first game back with only a week or two of contact training under his belt? It's not like defence was really our issue that game either.

If we're going to target anyone from the NRL at this stage I'd rather it was names like Andrew Every, Tain Drinkwater and Grant Williams. Fill the really serious talent gaps we're dealing with.

Seems unlikely they would've missed out today given there are players currently in the wallabies who didn't play firsts and developed themselves in senior men's club rugby, even with the more developed pathways we have now.

NEC Green Rockets Tokatsu

His role as a coach has always been hands on and focused on motivating and engaging players in a way that is largely irrelevant to a high performance czar/director of rugby. The only time he has taken on a DoR role it was an unmitigated disaster.

Cheika is not at all suited to that style of role.

Not too surprisingly there's a new article in the Canberra Times about the Brumbies opposing centralization: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8361047/were-fighting-for-canberra-brumbies-break-silence-on-centralisation-plan/ As much as we need to move forward on a centralised approach it's...

I know it looks a bit like an all-star game, but that's not the point of the challenger series. The whole focus is on talent ID and development for the Reds and needs to have that purpose front and center in the decisions made. I wouldn't be opposed to an all star game being run as well...

Who knows where it'll come from at this stage, but if that was McLennan's reasoning it's potentially part of the problem. The sacking of Raelene was a massive backward step for mine, maybe now we see a shift away from those same voices that have had a stranglehold on the game for so long. We'll...

Not sure what you mean by "team selections = not rules" here. Crowd wise it was always going to be a bit tough in a world cup year with the mood well down and a few clubs running tours to Europe. I do agree there's more to build around crowd an product here, particularly integrating the Saitama...

To be fair, I don't think anyone is defending that decision at this point, certainly it's not my intent. The broader point is that we already weren't in it with Rennie and no longer looked to be building much of anything either. All we were doing was continuing on the same downward trajectory...

I thought Ryan played really well and had a good combo with Grealy. Anderson and Bryant looked strong in the backrow and Toomaga-Allen arrived ready to get stuck in which was great to see. Development XV scrum started very strong with Nasser out there too, great to see him playing again. For...

We might have been playing better but we weren't playing well and Rennie was flailing. I don't entirely blame him, he was working in the same failed system as the rest, but I don't see any point in a middle of the road finish where we fail to threaten for the cup and keep going on business as...

The way Fiji played and the course we were on under Rennie it's far from certain we would have. Even if we did what would've been the point of an ordinary performance benefiting from the luck of the draw? At least this way there is nowhere to hide and they may finally blow up the joint and start...

It's going to be interesting to see who they go with, but he does stand as a likely panic button. On the evidence of the world cup so far they should arguably be chasing Raiwalui (though I'm doubtful it'd work or that he'd want it)

Funnily enough they both changed coaches

100% this. Without Tupou and Ala'alatoa do people really expect the performances would have been markedly better under Rennie? (this is in no way a defence of Eddie)

3 Angus Bell 2 Ben Donaldson 1 Nick Frost

Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but there's a write up from the Reds here: https://reds.rugby/news/double-delight-for-reds-development-xv-in-challenger-series-opener-2023918

Think you might not have been paying attention there, McReight didn't conceed any penalties in this game. Valetini gave one away for not rolling away when McReight got on the ball at the ruck, but the ref was clear that McReight was fine and the penalty was for 8.