Monday’s rugby news has Andrew Mehrtens defending McCaw, the Reds looking to emulate the Wallabies’ intensity, support for Graham and Eddie Jones trying to lift tier-two nations.
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McCaw no cheat, says Mehrtens
Andrew Mehrtens has hit back at accusations that All Blacks legend Richie McCaw was a cheat, claiming his former team-mate was simply “too good” for the opposition. McCaw confirmed his retirement last week, leading to both the recognition of his legendary career and questions on his breakdown tactics.
“As flankers, that’s their responsibility to push it as far as the referee will let them take it,” Mehrtens emphasised, adding that many thought that McCaw could only achieve many of his turnovers if cheating. “With [George] Smith, as with McCaw, most of the time it wasn’t cheating, it was just their innate ability to sense when the right moment was and what the right technique to employ was.”
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Reds behind Graham
Wallabies hopeful Samu Kerevi has emphasised that the Reds squad is totally supportive of their controversially retained coach Richard Graham. Some of the supporter anger has subsided since the original announcement but Graham — who has just a 28 per cent winning record as a Super Rugby coach — will still be a man under intense scrutiny.
“For myself and the team we’re just backing Richard 100 per cent,” Kerevi said. “We’re just going to work hard for him, for the squad and bring back Queensland to where it was.” Kerevi, 22, had a breakout season this year with his Super Rugby form catching the eye of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, who called him into camp in July.
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Reds looking to emulate Wallaby intensity
Serevi also emphasised that the Reds were looking to bounce back from their horrendous 2014 campaign, with the Wallaby heroics within the World Cup acting as inspiration. Last season the Reds finished fourth in the Australian conference and 13th on the combined standing
“For us in Queensland we want to bring the intensity the Wallabies had shown and to just give something to Super Rugby from Queensland’s side of things. We know we can get there and we just got to work hard,” said Kerevi. The Reds will have to start their campaign already stung by the injuries to Kane Douglas and James Slipper.
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Eddie inspiring tier-two nations
Before taking up his duties as England head coach, Eddie Jones will be travelling to Los Angeles to take part in a World Rugby workshop for the 10 tier-two nations in the recent World Cup which has the aim for two of them to qualify for the quarter-finals at the 2019 tournament in Japan.
World Rugby part-funded 106 of the management positions of the tier-two unions at the World Cup through its £10m-a-year budget for developing nations. “The investment programme made a real difference on the field,” said Egan. “The tier-two nations have significantly more resources to spend on their elite programmes, and they’re also playing more tests against tier-one nations.”
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