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The Waratahs will be underdone. The Reds’ tour of Europe – and a useful 38-31 win against Ulster at the weekend – left the Waratahs without anyone to play against, which means they will be a wee bit undercooked for their season-opener against the Highlanders on Friday.
Logic dictates that the Waratahs will be better by round seven than round one, so any win will do on Friday: one point is enough. The Highlanders wrapped up their preseason with a 29-24 win against the Crusaders on Thursday, and while the result is irrelevant Dan McKellar and co would have noted that the game involved some decent contact and a lot of ball movement – the sort of thing you can’t replicate in training. But he would have also seen how the Highlanders’ scrum got a bit of a touch up in the first half and how their lineout fell apart in the second spell when changes were made in the loose forwards and at hooker.
If I were running a Super Rugby club, I’d be quietly miffed at the timing of the announcement that Joe Schmidt is leaving the Wallabies after the Rugby Championship. On the eve of Super Rugby, it puts a lot of pressure on the four coaches because all of them are being linked to the Wallabies gig to one degree or another. They’re going to be peppered with questions about the Wallabies job, to which there is no correct answer, and their early Super Rugby results are going to be viewed through the same lens. It’s a distraction that could have been avoided. Rugby Australia has done a lot of good things in the past 12-18 months but my strong sense is that the Schmidt issue ran on for too long.
Joe Schmidt will leave his role after the Rugby Championship.Credit: Rugby Australia
Don’t expect the new Super Rugby Pacific chief executive Jack Mesley to engage in any public exchanges with Peter V’Landys: he knows he’s got to look after his own backyard first. “I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Mesley told me. “So I’d rather not be thinking about what ‘PVL’ is saying about rugby. Our commitment is to focus on the competition, get the competition growing. We’ve got a lot of work to do to continue off that growth from last year. There’s so much that we can be doing to fuel interest in our comp. Once we think we’ve squeezed the lemon and we’re where we want to be, then maybe that’ll change.”
The Waratahs will be underdone. The Reds’ tour of Europe – and a useful 38-31 win against Ulster at the weekend – left the Waratahs without anyone to play against, which means they will be a wee bit undercooked for their season-opener against the Highlanders on Friday.
Logic dictates that the Waratahs will be better by round seven than round one, so any win will do on Friday: one point is enough. The Highlanders wrapped up their preseason with a 29-24 win against the Crusaders on Thursday, and while the result is irrelevant Dan McKellar and co would have noted that the game involved some decent contact and a lot of ball movement – the sort of thing you can’t replicate in training. But he would have also seen how the Highlanders’ scrum got a bit of a touch up in the first half and how their lineout fell apart in the second spell when changes were made in the loose forwards and at hooker.
If I were running a Super Rugby club, I’d be quietly miffed at the timing of the announcement that Joe Schmidt is leaving the Wallabies after the Rugby Championship. On the eve of Super Rugby, it puts a lot of pressure on the four coaches because all of them are being linked to the Wallabies gig to one degree or another. They’re going to be peppered with questions about the Wallabies job, to which there is no correct answer, and their early Super Rugby results are going to be viewed through the same lens. It’s a distraction that could have been avoided. Rugby Australia has done a lot of good things in the past 12-18 months but my strong sense is that the Schmidt issue ran on for too long.
Joe Schmidt will leave his role after the Rugby Championship.Credit: Rugby Australia
Don’t expect the new Super Rugby Pacific chief executive Jack Mesley to engage in any public exchanges with Peter V’Landys: he knows he’s got to look after his own backyard first. “I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Mesley told me. “So I’d rather not be thinking about what ‘PVL’ is saying about rugby. Our commitment is to focus on the competition, get the competition growing. We’ve got a lot of work to do to continue off that growth from last year. There’s so much that we can be doing to fuel interest in our comp. Once we think we’ve squeezed the lemon and we’re where we want to be, then maybe that’ll change.”
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