pass is difficult to gauge. getting the best out of what you've got seems to be a pass, great cattle and under performing (e.g. Tahs for many years) is a fail, doing well with little, is definite pass (? Force last year).
so with the talent available you would assume that a top 6 is the bare minimum for the reds ?
Surely getting the best out of your squad is the crux of the challenge. If it was easy, the best team on paper would win just about every year.
The Reds have a really strong squad in 2015 but they've also got some early season injury woes and given that a bunch of their players are new to the squad or relatively inexperienced, getting them to gel and perform to their potential is no small order.
Covering for Cooper in the first couple of months will be a huge challenge. Despite a quality squad across the park, strength and depth in certain positions counts for a huge amount.
One of the major reasons the Tahs underperformed over many years is that despite a side chock full of Wallabies, they were very weak in the 10 position and often weak at 9 as well.
I think the three biggest challenges for the Reds this year are:
1) defence in the backline. There's lots of attacking flair, but in particular Kerevi and Kuridrani (and Taulagi if he gets plenty of game time) could be found out in defence. How well they do and how much the experienced players can support them will be crucial to their chances.
2) breakdown work and physicality in the forwards. Last year the Reds were excellent at set piece but generally got beaten in general play in the forwards. They need more punch from their ball runners and need to boss the breakdown more. The availability of Gill, getting more punch from Browning or Thomson at 6 over Quirk should go a long way towards that. It also looks like Horwill is in better form which is important. He lacked that grunt last year.
3) Hunt at 10 in the early rounds. He's steady and will surely grow into the position but can he do enough to get the backline humming? Super Rugby is a tough competition and there are few easy games. How he fares in round 1 against To'omua and the Brumbies could give reasonable insight into how tough life will be without Quade.
