1 October 2024 #013
Good morning G&GRs, and welcome to Tuesday’s news. If we were in Germany, specifically Munich, we’d be recovering from the second weekend of Oktoberfest. Unfortunately, we aren’t, so instead we are licking our wounds after another Wallabies loss to the All Blacks. However, we do have the player ratings from the Wallabies game to go through.
It’s not all bad though, the Wallaroos have been a work in progress this year under coach Jo Yapp (do we have a nickname for her yet?), and they put in a good shift against Wales to get the job done.
There’s plenty of news about Super Rugby with the draw for season 2025 dropping on Monday, and talk of player signings across the franchises.
We’ll round it out with some thoughts on a Kiwi send off to an Irish bloke.
Wallabies Player Ratings
You can read all about the Wallabies game against the All Blacks in Karl’s excellent match review here.
It’s been 22 years since Australia last held the Bledisloe Cup, Since 2002, Australia has beaten the All Blacks nine times, and while there have been 5 drawn series (six if you count 2002), the All Blacks have racked up 50 wins from 2003 to 2024 and nine on the bounce.
Most of us who read this site are patient, dyed in the wool fans, but 22 years, a win rate of 8.5%, and nine losses in a row is hard to take. This is poor, even against a historic win rate of 24% against the sheep shaggers. If there is a silver lining in this year, it is that we were better than the last few years, and some of our leadership group are openly expressing that they are sick of losing to the Kiwis. Also, as Eloise described here, and commented on widely, there are green shoots and coach Joe Schmidt is taking the team in the right direction. Let’s hope that RA show some maturity and stay the course.
The player ratings are in from the match review poll on the weekend. As usual, these are the average scores from the voting, and the commentary is mine.
- Angus Bell – 6 – Rounded up a little, but another solid game from Bell. He’s the first choice prop in Australia at the moment, and is still young and relatively inexperienced in numbers of tests played.
- Matt Faessler – 6 – Yet another good game from Faessler, we did cough up a couple of lineouts, but as with Bell, is the first choice hooker in Australia. Again relatively young and inexperienced, but a quality player.
- Taniela Tupou – 5.5 – Suffered an early knee injury and stayed on for 44 minutes as he tried to work through it. The knee injury did seem to bother him around the field. Overall it’s easy to forget that like Bell, Tupou has some serious injuries recently with an Achilles and calf injury.
- Nick Frost – 6 – Another start, and more physicality from Frost. Like the rest of the forwards, got off to a good start. Restarts were better this week. Always active in support running and made some good defensive stops.
- Jeremy Williams – 6 – Another very good performance from Williams and is really solidifying his spot in the team. He is physical and the kick off receipts were better. Still very early in his test career, but his commitment and pace into contact is excellent.
- Rob Valetini – 6.5 – Rated as Australia’s second best this week and not surprising. Strong carries, tackle busts, tackles, very good all around.
- Fraser McReight – 7 – Gets the highest score of the week and well deserved. Very good in the early parts with a try from close range. His support play is first class. Did miss a tackle on Jordan for their second try though there might’ve been a hint of obstruction from DeGroot in the leadup.
- Harry Wilson – 6.5 – Not as strong as last week, but kept the team in the contest throughout the game. Plenty of carries, and tackles throughout.
- Jake Gordon – 5 – Gordon looked sharper than White, and looks to play the game rather than whinge at the ref. Spilled an early ball on the try-line though.
- Noah Lolesio – 5.5 – Another solid performance again from Noah. Took on the line a few times and plenty of commentary on here about how he was better at organising the attack. Really solid place kicking is a positive.
- Dylan Pietsch – 6.5 – A good starting debut for Pietsch, was physical, went looking for work, and was good in attack and defence. Good to see Pietsch playing well, and hopefully he continues to go well. I have really liked the way he has turned his season around after a couple of poorer performances for the Waratahs early on. His play on 30 minutes to keep an All Blacks touch finder was excellent.
- Hunter Paisami – 5 – A bit of a mixed bag by Paisami for the second time in two weeks, a loose pass and a defensive misread offset some strong carries and generally leading the defensive line.
- Len Ikitau – 6 – Looking better with each game in gold this year. Some good carries, and good defence of course.
- Andrew Kellaway – 5.5 – Bit of talk on G&GR and with the craparazzi about how Kellaway missed a few tackles this week, but they were covering and scrambling tackles. Was the catalyst for a break in the second minute that should have seen Gordon score. Was highly rated by the guys on between two posts for his work around the field and scrambling.
- Tom Wright – 6.5 – Another good game by Wright, and seems to have more positive involvements compared to last year. Looked dangerous with the ball in hand, making a couple of key breaks.
- Brandon Paenga-Amosa – 5 – A solid game in his time on the field.
- Isaac Kailea – 5 – The scrum was better than the last few games when the reserves came on. Some good experience for Kailea as we look to rebuild our front row stocks.
- Allan Alaalatoa – 5.5 – A solid game after he came on early in the second half. Better in the scrum again but our bench didn’t add the impact that the All Blacks did.
- Lukhan Salakaia-Loto – 5.5– Added physicality and skill again this week. Could have started, but the coach is building experience into the squad.
- Langi Gleeson – 5 – Replaced Bobby V and wasn’t able to add as much impact as last week.
- Tate McDermott – 5.5 – Always looks to increase the pace of play, but was part of a bench that was less effective than the All Blacks bench, and couldn’t get the team back onto the scoreboard in the second half.
- Ben Donaldson – 5 – Was on as a replacement but as with Tate, couldn’t help the team score in the second half.
- Josh Flook – 5 – Got another chance to play at the highest level and put in a solid shift.
The Wallabies get a few weeks off to recover before they head off overseas on the northern grand slam tour. There will be more coverage on that in future weeks.
Wallaroos
The Wallaroos turned around their fortunes against Wales and you can read Eloise’s excellent review of it here. It was great to see the Wallaroos get a win after a tough start to the international season under coach Jo Yapp. It was an entertaining game to watch, and if you haven’t seen the full game, or the mini, I recommend it.
The Wallaroos are up against South Africa this week as they look to build on the success against Wales. The draw for the WXV2 can be found over on the WXV2 website here.
Super Rugby 2025
The draw for Super Rugby was released on Monday, and the Reds media team put together a great piece on facebook here.
As discussed last week, the Super season will start early on 14 Feb next year. Each team will have 2 byes in the 16 week regular season and in the case of the Reds, play each of the other Aussie sides and Fiji twice and the Kiwi teams once. There’s no super round this year (thankfully) and there’s a focus on the Anzac round. Nathan Williamson covers the 2025 season here.
Reds looking forward to 2025
The Reds announced the signing of Tim Ryan yesterday, which is a great result for both of them. He exploded into Super Rugby with three tries on debut against the Blues, and his third one would do any international winger proud. He’s been left out of the Wallabies squad which seems to be good player management by Schmidt and the coaching team.
Speaking of coaches, Les Kiss has made a big difference to the Reds in 2024 and is looking to build on it in 2025. The Reds scored a club record 69 tries in the 2024 super rugby season and suffered a string of close losses on the way to a quarter final appearance against the Chiefs.
While James O’Connor is leaving the Reds, the squad will be bolstered by additions from the Rebels including Josh Canham, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Filipo Daugunu, and Lachie Anderson. The Reds are looking to continue to entertain in 2025 and are targeting a semi-final appearance. There’s more over at RA here.
A Kiwi send off
Johnny Sexton has released his second autobiography and provides some details of his expletive laden send off by Reiko Ioane in the Rugby World Cup quarter final last year. In a quote attributed to Sexton: “After [referee Wayne] Barnes blows the final whistle, he [Ioane] says ‘don’t miss your flight tomorrow. Enjoy your retirement, you [expletive].’ So much for the All Blacks famous no expletive policy.”
It feels a bit like the pot calling the kettle black for Sexton to be complaining about copping a spray from anyone. For mine it is all distasteful, I’ve never been one for sledging or carrying on like that on the field. Play the game hard, be competitive, and leave it on the field. The game is made less by these sort of exchanges.
That’s a wrap for this week
That’s it for me this week, over to you G&GRs.
