Reds v Waratahs - Sat 15th Mar - Suncorp

[fatprop]

Reality check for the Tahs while, to me, being better than they were last week, you can see what they are working towards

The Reds had that little more composure and confidence in their structures to absorb immense pressure early and come home well

 

[Adam84]

I am overly worked up about the tahs and coaching thing because I feel like Aussie rugby in general loves making excuses instead of calling out crap.

Similar in the force v saders chat with some excuses about the force team being weaker with injury. Every team in sport isn’t 100% fit. NZ teams have rolled out B squads for years and still pumped us because our teams lack depth due to mediocre coaching and lack of fundamentals.

We fold our 5th team and literally gift our franchises our best players and still offer excuses. McKellar has been handed a golden ticket and the Tahs should be performing and looking better than they did last night. Top tier players lack of effort around the park falls onto the coach and needing to lift standards, which is what was lacking at the Rebels and we all crucified their culture.

I think this is a bit over the top.

Waratahs lost 7 wallabies in Pietsch, Perese, HJH (Harry Johnson-Holmes) (Harry Johnson-Holmes), Swinton, Holloway, Hanigan, Nawaqanitwase, and gained 6; Tupou, Kailea, Leota, Sua'ali'i, Kellaway and Lancaster. That's really not the golden ticket you're making it out to be. Waratahs have won 3 games already this year, and this is the first loss.. You can't say they haven't improved in 2025, so I'm not sure what's the cause of this sudden outrage and criticism; it's one game in the season.

There wasn't similar criticism of Kiss last week when the Reds were flogged by the Crusaders, despite it been his second seasons and the Reds also picking up Gibbon, LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto), Canham, Daugunu, Gordon and Anderson from the Rebels. If you're going to criticise McKellar, then surely Kiss deserves the same treatment?

 

[PhilClinton]

I think there are a couple of mixed narratives here.

I’m piling on McKellar and was expressing my frustration that people were coming to his defence saying “they were so bad last year, can’t expect them to be good yet!”.

They definitely have improved from last year - as they should be with the cattle they’ve got on the park.

What I saw last night was a team with enough firepower to have a great contest, but the key players looked rudderless and at times lacked enthusiasm. Which I’m putting down as criticism of the coach.

I’d argue the loss of Campbell and Flook for the Reds has been far more disruptive to their backline and overall structure than the injuries the Tahs are facing. Yet the Reds still have managed to play decent footy most of the time.

In that haul of players you mention the Reds acquired, only 2 of them would probably make the Wallabies 23 at this time and out of those 2, LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto) hasn’t even been playing. I think the Tahs acquisitions on paper are superior and should be firing.

The fact that McKellar is allegedly in a coin flip for Wallabies coach blows my mind.

 

[TSR]

From memory there was a lot of ill feeling from his home state when he was famously/bizzarely able to bully Rennie into selecting too many Brumbies players.

I was one of those of sorts. Although I’d like to think I was measured in my criticism - but maybe you don’t . From memory the argument was that in 21 McKellar lent towards some of the Brumbies players for fringe positions in the forwards because it made it easier to implement Brumbies systems. This was after the Reds won Super AU. So when it came to fringe selections a lot of them came down to Brumbies players. I think guys like Lonergan, McInnerney and Swain benefitted from that. Picking the 4th string Brumbies hooker was a bit of a long blow and you’d have to say Lonergan was no where near ready to be involved in tests. I also think there was a perception that Lolesio benefited from that although personally I had no problem with that decision as he was basically last man standing.

To be honest I found it a bit harder to listen to Fisher come in and talk about the Brumbies in interviews as part of the Wallaby staff and then complain publicly that other teams supporters were criticising the Wallabies for being too ‘Brumby Centric’.

 

[Heavyd]

If you watched the first 15 mins and then had a blackout you’d of thought NSW was going to win comfortably. Some things didn’t go our way but I think there is still hope. Would love to know WTF is happening with Sualli. We need him!

 

[molman]

Not to mention even the quality of players aside, thats a massive amount of turnover of players and coaches. Generally systems of defence are embedded first before attack, which you can clearly see. The Tah's have a lot of combinations and partnerships that are being established. This is in comparison to a Reds team which has a rather consistent spine and group of players who are now in their second year under the same coaching group, but some of these combinations go back to juniors.

I remember Ben Darwin talking about how do you actually measure a coaches performance. Some winning teams win irrespective of the qualities of the coaches and some lose even if they have the best coach in the world. I remember him talking about winning teams who were underperforming in competitions and teams that lost more often than not which were overperforming for what resources they had (the players, cohesion etc...).

 

[molman]

....

What I saw last night was a team with enough firepower to have a great contest, but the key players looked rudderless and at times lacked enthusiasm. Which I’m putting down as criticism of the coach.

... (curious) who are the specific players you are making this judgement about?

 

[PhilClinton]

Are you implying everyone from the Tahs had a good game? Because if so, that would be even more alarming.

 

[Adam84]

I think there are a couple of mixed narratives here.

I’m piling on McKellar and was expressing my frustration that people were coming to his defence saying “they were so bad last year, can’t expect them to be good yet!”.

They definitely have improved from last year - as they should be with the cattle they’ve got on the park.

What I saw last night was a team with enough firepower to have a great contest, but the key players looked rudderless and at times lacked enthusiasm. Which I’m putting down as criticism of the coach.

I’d argue the loss of Campbell and Flook for the Reds has been far more disruptive to their backline and overall structure than the injuries the Tahs are facing. Yet the Reds still have managed to play decent footy most of the time.

In that haul of players you mention the Reds acquired, only 2 of them would probably make the Wallabies 23 at this time and out of those 2, LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto) (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto) hasn’t even been playing. I think the Tahs acquisitions on paper are superior and should be firing.

The fact that McKellar is allegedly in a coin flip for Wallabies coach blows my mind.

Dunno. As an outsider to the Tahs, I think Losing Gordon & Sua'ali'i has a bigger impact on that backline than Flook & Campbell at the Reds.

But my question remains about Kiss: how can you throw so much criticism at McKellar for their first loss of the season when the Red's loss last week against the Crusaders was just as bad, especially given the variables like it been Kiss's 2nd season in charge? That's what's confusing me about this commentary, laying into McKellar for the first loss of the season, but excusing other coaches like Kiss.

 

[PhilClinton]

This is in comparison to a Reds team which has a rather consistent spine and group of players who are now in their second year under the same coaching group, but some of these combinations go back to juniors.

The Reds have had a different starting backline every game this year. Murray, Daugunu and Dre Pakeho are also brand new into the main squad this year and have featured in those backlines.

 

[The Red Baron]

Porecki was lucky to not get pinged more often for not throwing straight in the lineout last night. He really needs to improve his throwing accuracy.

 

[Adam84]

A few of the really crooked throws were when the Reds didn't contest so he got away with it, the Ref even made comment on that during the match as why it wasn't called back

 

[molman]

The Reds have had a different starting backline every game this year. Murray, Daugunu and Dre Pakeho are also brand new into the main squad this year and have featured in those backlines.

I'm not just talking about the backline, or 9/10 axis, but throughout the team there is a spine of consistency.

Daugunu is a returning Reds player who spent 5 years with many of the players, not to mention a couple in Qld Country.

Integrating two new players into a settled group is a lot easier than establishing essentially a new team, a new culture, new systems from scratch.

 

[PhilClinton]

The Crusaders and the NZ form in general seems to be building as the bench mark again.

The challenge of playing in Christchurch without Campbell, Flook and Paisami along with HMP leading the backline I think is exponentially more difficult than coming to Brisbane with the team the Tahs were able to put on the park.

I agree the player loses in the Tahs backline aren’t great either, but Sua’ali’i has literally played what, 70mins of footy for them all year. Hard to say he’s more integral to their team than the 3 backs the Reds were missing for the Crusaders game.

 

[molman]

I thought I'd make it clearer as to what different a position these two squads are at.

Here is the starting year of the players in the starting 15 for the game last night for their respective clubs/franchises. Might make my point to @PhilClinton a little clearer. This is ignoring some of the playing time together these players have had in the Wallabies, but also some in the NRC and Juniors etc, which TBH greatly favours the Reds squad.

Some of these Waratah players have played 4 or less professional (SuperRugby) games together. Is Kiss doing a good job with Qld? Sure seems to be from the outside. Is he doing a better job than McKellar? who knows. He has a more cohesive squad who he's had a lot more time with. He took the Reds from 8th to 5th in his first year. If McKellar takes the Waratahs from 12th to 9th is he equally successful? Unless we had a time machine and could swap the coaches to see how they'd do in reverse it's hard to say, but it's pretty clear they're not working with the same variables.

 

[Heavyd]

587000 viewers on Channel 9 last night.

 

[Derpus]

More disruptive than the loss of Gordon, Foketi, Suaallii and then guys from last season like Perese and Nawaqanitawase? You is wrong.

The fact that McKellar is in with a shot of being Wallabies coach shouldn't surprise you because we have no professional coaching pathways and therefore no particularly great coaches.

I'm still hoping they've been on the phone to O'Gara....

 

[molman]

I suspect McKellar, Kiss and even Larkham are all reasonable coaches, as are probably some of the assistants. The fact remains however that none of them have really achieved high level success. Kiss had London Irish heading in the right direction. He seems to be with the Reds, but I'd personally like to see more evidence before he steps up.

I feel that coaches like Jamie Joseph have shown a great capacity to extract a lot from what he's working with. Wouldn't mind a coach like him. O'Gara is an interesting one. A solid CV and some notable results with Stade Rochelais, though contextually he's had access to a pretty solid squad.

Anyway, this is veering into a different discussion that should probably occur in a different thread.

 

[TSR]

I’m interested in the view from those at the ground on both Heremia Murray & Tim Ryan.

Try aside Murray seemed to settle last night and seemed to have a solid game. Not outstanding but I can’t remember him making many mistakes or being caught out of position. Could possibly inject himself more in attack??

A few comments around about Tim Ryan having second year blues, but he actually doesn’t seem to be doing much wrong to me. He’s just suffering because he had this wonderful highlights reel from last year that he was probably never going to live up to over the long term. But mostly seems to be working hard and doing his core duties well enough. Not sure what his defence stats would be but generally seems to be going okay. He misses a few but it is often when he is flying up or coming across hard and he often makes the player prop and get picked up by the cover. Would love to see him carving up, but seems to be progressing well enough.

But interested in the perspective of those watching live.

 

[Adam84]

587000 viewers on Channel 9 last night.

587k national reach
167k total tv national audience
14k BVOD

must be the best ratings in years?