I hate to be that guy but I haven’t seen any previous chats in this thread on this topic. Do you think the reds have a chance of winning or at going to grand finals this year. I personally genuinely think they have a shot but I want to hear your guys opinion.
It’s too early to say. The games so far have been very positive but still with plenty of room for improvement. But teams will also only now be starting to see patterns in how Les has them operating and teams will start working on breaking that down a lot more.
We also have very young playmakers. Often with young players in their first season or so of pro rugby they start off like world beaters but fall off as a full pro season hits them.
Having said that there is actually a lot of experience in the squad and there has always been plenty of talent in this group. And I really like that our game is being built around strong fundamentals - strong lineout, good/improving scrum, solid kicking game, accurate tackle completion, good discipline. Over the last 2 yrs a recurring theme has been our tackle accuracy has been blown out when we’ve played the Kiwi teams. This year we played two of the strongest Kiwi teams and matches up very well. So there are plenty of good signs.
But I’ve just seen too many teams start looking like champions and end the season looking like chumps. If Kiss can keep building the team off this base than at the very least will be tough to play.