Rebels3
Jim Lenehan (48)
I wouldn’t be too down on the Brums L/O, Jones is a very good technician other teams will struggle as well.Agreed about JJH instead of Simone. Thought Simone was rather anonymous. I'd be pretty pleased if I were a Brumbies fan. Lineouts can be shored up relatively quickly and it looks like TK and Speight have decided to turn up which is great. Was Speight subbed off because of an injury? I thought he was deadly every time with the ball. How fantastic was it to be able to sub on Sio after Slipper, that's scary.
I know it wasn't a direct match up, but I thought Maddocks definitely had the wood over Banks tonight for all those keeping score in the "which youngster for Wobs supersub" race.
For the Rebels I thought Genia and Isi had the start of a great combination. Really worked well off each other. Scrum was absolutely shocking, I just feel bad for the front row, when it's so blindingly obvious they're so poor compared to the rest. Rebels conceded 11 penalties to the Brumbies' 6 and still looked dominant in the 2nd half. Imagine how the Rebels would go with a semi decent scrum.
Positive signs for both teams and fantastic to have rugby back.
Pocock loss was massive as he would of slowed the ball down, overall the better team won but considering recent seasons a decent showing from two Aus teams