The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Swire Shipping Fijian Drua were outsmarted and outmuscled by the Melbourne Rebels 42-27 at the AAMI Park, on Friday night.

This was the Rebels first win in the Super Rugby Pacific 2022 competition.

It was a united effort from the hosts with seasoned campaigners, Matt To’omua, Reece Hodge, Andrew Kellaway, Matt Philips, Jordan Uelese, Cabous Eloff and captain, Michael Wells, plotting every move that left the Fijians biting the dust.

The Rebels played to their strength. They utilised their big forwards while To’omua and Hodge kept them deep inside the Drua territory with their long range touch finders.

To’omua, also kept the scoreboard ticking with every kickable penalty that came their way. The Rebels kept building up their points because that mattered the most when it came to the final whistle.

Even, Drua head coach Mick Byrne admitted, that it was different Rebels team compared to the side they had beaten at the Sunshine Coast Stadium in Queensland, three weeks ago.

“We didn’t start with that urgency and the Rebels took control of the opening 20 minutes and piled their points. We didn’t meet them fire-to-fire,” Byrne said.

Yet again, despite the three Drua tries, it was another disappointed night with their fourth loss.

Let’s take a look at what went right and wrong or what needs to done

THE GOOD: The abundance of our talented players who now have Super Rugby experience. These players are from the age group of 20 to 23.

Winger Vinaya Habosi is nicknamed, ‘Bossman’ by Super Rugby television commentators, baby of the team, Kitione Salawa, who is still 20, Vilive Miramira, Tevita Ikanivere, Kalaveti Ravouvou, Selesitino Ravutaumada, Isoa Nasilasila, Zuriel Togiatama, Kaliopasi Uluilakepa, Te Ahiwaru Cirikidaveta, Caleb Muntz and the talented, Jona Mataiciwa.

Remember the adage that Rome was not build in a day, rings true for our rising stars. Give them time to settle, gain a bit more experience and we should be there.

THE BAD: Playing catch-up rugby. Byrne and captain, Nemani Nagusa have admitted to this.

Nagusa said giving Rebels the opportunity to build-up on their scores early in the game put them under a lot of unnecessary pressure.

“This is something we’ve to work on,” the veteran No.8 pointed out after the match.

Nagusa said, playing catch-up throughout the match really affected their game.

This explained the unforced errors like failing to connect with their offloads, taking wrong options with the error count kept on going up.

THE UGLY: Chances of winning our own lineout throws have gone from bad to worse. A permanent solution is needed and not a quick fix.

On Friday night, our players time and again opted to tap and run the ball when given a penalty. Even metres from their tryline, they chose not to kick for touch. This could be attributed to their lack of confidence in winning their own lineout throws.

If this is the case, then we are in a sorry state.

We’ve got to learn from former Fijian men’s 7s head coach Gareth Baber, who taught our Olympic gold medal winning team, the art to kick for touch from such penalties and win their own lineout throws with ease.

This, Baber once said, puts them into an attacking position and helps players conserve their energy.

There are ways to address this issue, if the hookers cannot connect their lineout throws with the jumpers then why not try out the halfback or a prop.

This is nothing new, remember France once used their halfbacks to throw in their lineout balls. And also, we did a similar move in sevens rugby with halfbacks Jerry Tuwai or Waisea Nacuqu doing the lineout throws and guess what? It worked!

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