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Reds 2013

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Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Big Kev has already put pen to paper hasn't he?

New Sponsor?

Strategic alignment with QUT as education provider of choice?
 
Hugh Jarse

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Godwin. Now that would be exciting.

Player signings generally aren't saved up for special press conferences. They are usually announced the same day as the signatures hit the paper.

Like others here, I can't see it being a player signing that will be announced.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
redstragic said:
The reds are with Griffith Uni. They have just been in wa. Who is over there we would poach?
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I thought they were aligned with Bond University, they definitely were in 2012, has this changed?

Damian Marsh would lecture occasionally at Bond, and some of their students would attend Reds training for work experience.
 
T

TOCC

Guest
Hugh Jarse said:
Godwin. Now that would be exciting.

Player signings generally aren't saved up for special press conferences. They are usually announced the same day as the signatures hit the paper.

Like others here, I can't see it being a player signing that will be announced.
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He would be a good a good signing, but devastating for the force
 
Jets

Jets

Paul McLean (56)
Staff member
TOCC said:
I thought they were aligned with Bond University, they definitely were in 2012, has this changed?

Damian Marsh would lecture occasionally at Bond, and some of their students would attend Reds training for work experience.
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They were with Bond in 2012 but are now with Griffith. Bond has signed a deal with the ARU.
 
RedsHappy

RedsHappy

Tony Shaw (54)
I found Wayne Smith's (the journalist one) analysis of the dangerous weaknesses emerging in our current backs structure illuminating (probably as I agree with him and said so in the match thread just after the Force match ;))


Michael Foley hands Lions blueprint to stopping Genia, Cooper
BY:WAYNE SMITH From: The Australian May 06, 2013 12:00AM

"MAUL Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul Pick Maul. That game plan looks familiar."

So tweeted Brumbies forwards coach Laurie Fisher at the height of the Queensland Reds' onslaught on the Western Force line in Perth on Saturday night. And, yes, it did look familiar. Indeed, it was almost a carbon copy of the Reds' tactics in the final 20 minutes of their clash with the Brumbies at Suncorp Stadium on April 20. A carbon copy of the outcome, too, with the Reds scoring a late try to draw the match.

In both matches the second-half stats screamed utter domination by the Reds, both in terms of possession and field position, with the Queenslanders camped on their opponents' line for huge slabs of time. And yet, for all of that, it was all the Reds could do to batter their way over for the equalising touchdown. Even then, they almost didn't succeed. There is no question Chris Feauai-Sautia got the ball down on the line for the equaliser but arguably, in the 17-year history of Super Rugby, no try has ever involved so fleeting a grounding. Grounding? It was more a caress.


Credit to the Western Force for defending so stoutly. Credit to the Force as well for driving the Reds to the conclusion that an endless series of pick-and-goes was the only way they had a chance to score.

Force coach Michael Foley would hate this but there is every chance British and Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland will use the Perth team's tactics as his blueprint for bottling up Will Genia next month. Granted, if he does, it could prove his undoing because clearly Foley took the risk of shortening his defensive line in the (correct) belief that the Reds would become so fixated on pick-and-drives that they wouldn't swing the ball wide, and that's not an assumption Gatland could safely make about the Wallabies.

Still, by stiffening his defence close to the ruck and ordering his players to get off the line in defence as quickly as the Brumbies had done against them in Canberra, Foley ensured Genia and - as a consequence Quade Cooper - were denied any time and space in which to work their magic.

Many an opposing coach has tried to devise a way of shutting down the two brilliant Reds playmakers. But no one does it better than Foley. He almost succeeded on a couple of occasions while NSW coach but it's fair to say the Waratahs didn't give him quite the same level of commitment as the Force players have shown in their two matches against the Reds this season. Indeed, the lowly Force, ranked 13th on the Super Rugby table, has a record against the Reds this season matched only by one other side, the table-topping Brumbies.

That the Reds resorted to trench warfare in the second half despite the fact that their most effective close-to-the-line battering ram, James Horwill, didn't return after half-time suggests too that they have misgivings about the effectiveness of their outside backs. And perhaps with good reason. Digby Ioane aside - how the Reds are going to miss him - this Queensland side is distinctly lacking in firepower out wide this season. Inside centre Ben Tapuai has struggled to replicate his 2012 form, Anthony Fainga'a, though as effective as another openside flanker in winning turnovers, isn't overly creative in attack, winger Dom Shipperley unaccountably has lost his spark while Jono Lance lacks the pace to provide the attack spark that the Waratahs get from fullback from Israel Folau and the Brumbies from Jesse Mogg.

Over time the Reds have become over-reliant on Genia, Cooper and Ioane and opposing sides not surprisingly have refined their tactics for restraining the three of them. A very real challenge now confronts McKenzie to come up with a new answer.

Let it be stressed that the Reds aren't playing badly, by any means. Since their shock - well, now not quite so shocking - loss to the Force in Brisbane, they have played the Bulls (then top of the South African conference), the Highlanders, the Chiefs (then top of the NZ conference), the Brumbies (the competition leaders), the Blues (who by that stage had replaced the Chiefs as the No 1-ranked NZ team) and the Force again, this time in Perth, without suffering a single defeat.

In doing so, they picked up 22 competition points out of a possible 30 and became, in the process, the first Australian side ever to make a clean sweep of its NZ opponents in one season. Not shabby at all.

And yet, for all of that, the Reds are looking weary. Perhaps that perception was heightened by watching the Waratahs cut loose a few hours later against the Southern Kings in Port Elizabeth. To be fair, the Waratahs would have had tougher opposed training sessions than what the Kings provided.

Still, the Tahs will return from South Africa on a high and with a growing belief that a playoff berth is not beyond them. The Reds, by contrast, face three South African sides in a row, the Sharks at home on Friday, followed by the Cheetahs and the Stormers in the republic, and weariness is not a trait they will want to take into those matches.
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Bowside

Bowside

Peter Johnson (47)
The obvious way around this from the reds/wallabies point of view is to keep the ball in play as much as possible and run the other team off their feet. Quick lineouts, quick setting of scrums, dont kick it out unless you totally have to.
 
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