With the Rebels beating the Brumbies, the race for the Super Rugby AU playoffs was wide open (except for the Western Force) with almost half of the competition still to go. The team in the best position to take advantage of this were the Queensland Reds, who travelled to Sydney to take on their rivals the NSW Waratahs.

The ‘Tahs soon found themselves behind to a penalty from Will Harrison (who went perfect off the tee on the day) and things soon got worse as scrum half Jake Gordon crossed for the opening try in the 10ᵗʰ minute. Gordon was over for his second just a few minutes later, reacting quickest to the awarding of a penalty 5 metres out between the posts and taking a quick tap to go over before either James O’Connor or Brandon Paenga-Amosa could react. Jack Maddocks soon added a third before Gordon and Harrison broke following a messy lineout, the scrumhalf completing his hat-trick in just 27 minutes. There was still time for Alex Newsome to add one more try with a spectacular finish, bringing the halftime score to 38-0.

With the rain arriving for the second half, the Waratahs went to a tighter game, this time scoring through Tom Horton, courtesy of a catch and drive lineout. Newsome and Jack Dempsey both had second half tries rightfully ruled out by TMO reviews, while the Reds finally got on the board as the hour mark approached, as replacement Jack Hardy was on hand to take advantage of Jack Maddocks failing to control James O’Connor’s cross-kick. O’Connor kept playing despite the match being out of reach and he got his just reward with the final play of the game, bursting through a gap to score the Red’s second try and converting to make the final score 45-12, a record margin between these teams in Super Rugby.

Thrown away

Perhaps last week’s match with the Brumbies took more out of each team than we thought, as just like the Brumbies at Leichhardt Oval, the Reds were never in this game.

While the intensity wasn’t really there for the most part, what really hindered them in this game was the lineout. The Reds lost a whopping 5/15 lineouts through this game, and when such a vital set piece is operating at just 67% you are always going to struggle to win matches. The ‘Tahs didn’t need to worry about going for 22/50 or 50/22 kicks, they could just kick for decent territory and know that there was a good chance they could win the ball back from the Reds’ lineout.

The lineout seemed to improve after hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa was replaced by Alex Mafi. Unfortunately for the Reds, the game was already over by that pint, then Mafi had to go off on 67 minutes with a head injury, meaning a return for Paenga-Amosa. It became clear that the team didn’t trust his throwing in the second half, as they twice went for tap-and-go penalties despite being deep in their own half, while they also took a quick lineout on their own 5m line late in the game when it clearly wasn’t on, leading to the series of scrums that saw replacement prop Zane Nonggorr sent to the sin bin.

Next week’s match at home to the Rebels is now a must-win match. Assuming he is fit, don’t be surprised to see Mafi given the starting spot, and Paenga-Amosa potentially drop out of the 23 altogether.

Left exposed

In the early stages of the game, the Waratahs found that they were having a lot of success on their left wing. James Ramm is a talented young winger with pace to burn and Jock Campbell had no way to cope with him.

While it wasn’t great for Campbell, it’s not really his fault, as he would usually be playing fullback and was originally set to play 15, until Jordan Petaia understandably pulled out late following the passing of his father. This led to Campbell covering the right wing, and it was clear that he’d had limited preparation for the match there as he didn’t know how to deal with the Tah’s attack. an early attack was allowed to make its way downfield on the Tahs’ left wing as Campbell was caught too deep, while the next time the ball got spread wide to the Tahs’ left, Campbell was caught too narrow coming up in the line and found himself easily stepped by Ramm as he rushed across to narrow down the space – this in fact led to the opening try. A knock in the early attack when he was caught deep certainly didn’t help things either, but by the time he was pulled off after 18 minutes, the game was already looking like a 1-way affair at 17-0.

Sometimes being a utility back makes your job a lot harder.

He’s back!

After a couple of off matches, I suggested that Jack Maddocks would really benefit from last week’s bye in order to reset. Well it certainly seemed that it worked on today’s performance!

Maddocks certainly seems to be a confidence player, and an early break down that left wing – which saw him beat a few defenders – will have done wonders to help. His play seemed so much better this week and his 86 metres from 9 carries was beaten by only Hunter Paisani (11 runs, 103m), while in the first half alone he made a couple of breaks, saved a 50/22 kick and of course got himself in the right position to get a try!

His impact was limited in the second half as the weather led to a tighter game, but what impressed me here is how he reacted to fumbling O’Connor’s cross-kick for Jack Hardy’s try. In recent games, we’d have probably seen his head drop, but not this time, and he still made some key contributions as the game went on.

I sincerely hope that this is the Jack Maddocks we see for the rest of the competition.