Good morning G&GRs and welcome to another episode of Tuesday’s Rugby News. It feels a bit surreal that it’s June already, and with the the Super Rugby season headed to the finals we’re rushing towards test season; the British & Irish Lions series is almost upon us. But not yet, there’re still three weeks of Super Rugby Pacific 2025 left.
Today, we’ll look at some contemporary news articles, and have a stab at a Wallabies team of the week.
Reds Injury list
The Reds still have a very long injury list, but there might be some good news for the team headed to Christchurch to take on the Crusaders on Friday. With players like Liam Wright, Matt Faessler, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Massimo De Lutiis, Alex Hodgman, and Harry McLaughlin-Phillips (HIA) on the injured list, there’s a chance Harry Wilson and Tim Ryan may be fit for the game and Seru Uru could make his return this week. That’d be a welcome addition to the Reds as they look to break a long run of Aussie teams losing finals matches in New Zealand.
If Wilson and Uru are both fit it’ll be an interesting call for the coaching staff as Joe Brial has been excellent the last few games. It’s been good to see the return of Daugunu and Flook in recent games, both bring experience, poise and size to the backline.
What backline’s selected and what tactics the Reds bring to the game on Friday will be fascinating; I’d pick Tate, Lynagh, Daugunu, Paisami, Flook, Anderson and Campbell as the starting backline with Fa’agase, Asiata, Nonggorr, Canham, Smith, Uru, McReight and Wilson to start in the forwards.
It’s a massive week for Qld rugby, so hopefully Wilson and Uru can make it out onto the pitch.
Fantasy Rugby update
Like a lot of things, I had good intentions about the Super Rugby fantasy tipping this year, but then life got in the way and I forgot to change my team after the third round, without using any of the boosters and such. It may not surprise you to read that isn’t a good strategy for scoring points. Over the 16 rounds my team accumulated 5662 points to put me in 158th place (out of 185) on the G&GR leaderboard and in 45,681 place overall. Not very good compared to Cal7 who took out the top prize with 10,069 points by a nose from ColmTalksRugby on 10,055 points. That’s less than 1 point per round separating first and second place, so congrats to Cal7 and Colm.
In the G&GR league, holmanist takes home bragging rights with 9,655 points, more than 200 clear of Gordos Gauls in second place. Honourable mention to regular writer and all around great guy Happyman who was the best of the G&GR writers with 8,626 points in 54th place.
Hospital Cup Update
It was a pretty miserable day in Brisbane on Saturday, so credit to anyone who got out and either played rugby, or better yet supported your team. It was a round of close games in the Hospital Cup with three of the four games being decided by 7 points or less, the blowout of the round was Easts beating GPS by 30-17.
Which means that after 9 rounds of the Hospital Cup we see Easts and Brothers at the top of the table on 39 and 35 points, respectively, and Wests and Bond Uni rounding out the top 4.
Talking about club rugby, I saw a reference to this last week, and it came up again on Instagram in the feed this week. In a great story, Souths captain, Kohan Herbert, was granted a one game leave pass to play for his childhood club the Nerang Bulls against Helensvale in the Navar Herbert Cup which is named in honour of his late brother. To cap it off, Herbert scored the match winning try to seal the victory for the Bulls. A great result for the Bulls and credit to any of the officials involved to make it happen.
Wallabies team of the week.
It’s Tuesday, time for a Wallabies team of the week. The Force didn’t play this week, the Brumbies played a thriller against the Crusaders, the Waratahs got belted by the Blues and the Reds belted the Drua in the rain at Suncorp. The variability in the games does make it more difficult to compare individual performances, but here goes anyway. So for the last regular season round, RAWF’s potential Wallabies team of the week is:
- James Slipper – in the week that he re-signed for the Brumbies, Slips in a solid performance.
- Billy Pollard – gets the nod for facing the Crusaders. Brumbies didn’t lose a lineout or scrum.
- Zane Nonggorr – another strong performance around the field for Nonggorr.
- Josh Canham – an excellent performance at lineout, a good try in the tight, and a more physical game all around.
- Tom Hooper – seems to be equally at home in the second row or at #8. Another good game.
- Rob Valetini – Brumbies best on ground throughout the game.
- Fraser McReight – a good display by Fraser in the rain at Suncorp. Didn’t get a try, but plenty of link play.
- Harry Wilson – another good hitout by the Reds #8 including a left footed grubber kick that almost led to a try. Left the field early with a knock to his recently broken arm, but is rumoured to be in the mix for this weekend’s game against the Crusaders.
- Tate McDermott – a very good game in the wet for Tate.
- Tom Lynagh – an attacking masterclass from the Reds, while Noah was good, he and the Brumbies needed to find a way to win that game at the end, a field goal maybe but they never looked like it.
- Corey Toole – his pace and footwork makes him an attacking threat in every game, but gets exposed in defence at times.
- David Feliuai – was good for the Brumbies at centre and put on two amazing displays of handling, one led to Muirhead’s try.
- Len Ikitau – seemingly his first action of the game was scoring from a very good play after taking a short ball from Valetini.
- Lachie Anderson – a great game from Anderson, bagging 4 tries (that’s a Qld Reds record, and only equalled by Joe Roff and Drew Mitchell for Australian teams). He’s been excellent recently and deserves to be considered for the Wallabies squad along with Potter, Daugunu, and Pietsch, and others.
- Jock Campbell – the return of Jock Campbell has sparked the Reds play, he was outstanding against the Drua on the weekend.
- Richie Asiata – good for Reds, who won all of their own lineouts and scrums.
- Sef Fa’agase – a good performance at scrum and in general play
- Feao Fotuaika – scored the Brumbies opening try .
- Nick Frost – a solid performance from the big man, played the full game and had influential moments.
- Ryan Smith – got through a ton of work in his final home game for the Reds and got to take the last conversion.
- Joe Brial – was very good again and got another try.
- Ryan Lonergan – another good game and should be in the mix come the first test of the season
- Filipo Daugunu – was very good off the bench and brings a lot of physicality and game awareness.
That’s a wrap
Hope you enjoyed the reading and I look forward to the comments section.
