1. What happened, Tony?
What a turnaround for Tony McGahan. Last week he was a genius who had single-handedly turned the Rebels around, and put them on a course for their best ever season. Now he is a fool who meddled with a winning line-up and paid the price.
His six changes to the starting team were dumb, dumb, dumb. Yes depth is important, but it is WAY more important to keep stability and build combinations as the season goes on. Not to mention the players he benched- Luke Jones? Bryce Hegarty? Scott Fuglistaller? What was he smoking? These blokes were the lynch-pins of their first round win.
Sure enough it was a disaster, and the new players failed to perform. But to put the blame on them would be harsh- the whole performance of the team was woeful (with the exception of Mitch Inman). Any momentum they had from their undefeated pre-season is now gone. The faint glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, a finals spot was in the offing has also gone.
The real disappointment was the fact that it took 79 minutes for them to score a try. A few of the Force’s early tries were a bit fortunate, with the bounce of the ball going their way. At 32-0 the game is probably gone, but good teams find a way to rally the troops and at least make the scoreline respectable. It is what the Force did against the Brumbies last week. The Rebels had 60 minutes to rebuild, to show SOMETHING, but they failed to do so. It was an unmitigated disaster.
As for the Force, it was a gutsy effort. They have always struggled for playmakers, and from that performance it is clear that this year it needs to be centred around Alby Mathewson. In my view he was the man of the round, putting blokes through holes and keeping the defence on the back foot with his educated snipes and crisp passing.
I still don’t think the Force will crack the top 10 this year, but that performance will give them a shedload of belief and a glimpse of what they are capable of. I hope they can repeat the effort against a few more sides this season, though I doubt many will lie down quite like the Rebels did.
