Super Rugby: Brumbies’ wing weapons set to attack makeshift Reds backline

THE latest “Band-Aid backline” forced on the Reds is at the mercy of try-hungry wing weapons Henry Speight and Joe Tomane at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.

THE latest “Band-Aid backline” forced on the Reds is at the mercy of try-hungry wing weapons Henry Speight and Joe Tomane at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.

ACT Brumbies coach Steve Larkham dreams of exploiting targets like the inexperienced Reds back three, who have never been synchronised by playing even a minute together.

Sports bookmakers rate the Reds as seven-point underdogs, but stemming the bleeding to that margin would almost be a feat after their injury hell deepened yesterday.

Losing James O’Connor (calf strain) means the Reds will field an emergency fourth-string fullback in career centre Ben Tapuai to go with Nick Frisby, their fifth-choice flyhalf.

In defence is where the biggest strain will be, with rookie wingers Chris Kuridrani and Campbell Magnay working with the organising voice of Tapuai, who has no experience as a last-line defender.

Nick Frisby at Reds training.

Larkham’s playbook has directed more work to Speight and Tomane, with 26 ball-carries apiece, than any other wingers in Australian rugby in the opening month of Super Rugby.

Tomane (two tries, 179 running metres) and Speight (158 running metres) have shredded 15 tackles between them and that doesn’t count the damage of outside centre Tevita Kuridrani.

“Taps adds another kicking option with his left foot and his 25-minute stint last game demonstrated the benefits he can add to the team’s shape,” Reds coach Richard Graham said.

“He’s got to do a fair bit of learning about fullback, especially with being clear about the role defensively.”

With Lachie Turner (concussion), JJ Taulagi (knee) and the suspended Karmichael Hunt out of the picture, Graham, a former fullback himself, has shown great faith in Tapuai.

Graham batted away questions that his job was increasingly shaky with every loss by the Reds.

“I don’t real care what is said in the media,” Graham said.

“At the end of day, the only guys who can control our situation are the guys on the inside, myself at the top of that, the players and the staff.”

Returning lock James Horwill said the Reds “owed their fans” a performance of character.

“There’s not a magic fix or pill to make things automatically get better,’ Horwill said.

“We’ve got to roll our sleeves up from the experienced guys to the first-year players.

“There’s no point sugarcoating it. We’ve got to be better than we have been because we’ve not been up to scratch.”

Graham said O’Connor picked up a corked calf early in last weekend’s loss to the NSW Waratahs which worsened to a minor strain.

“He was always skinny on the amount of work he’d done coming back from an injury in France and then he played 80 minutes back-to-back,” Graham said.

“James missing one game and going into a bye week is far better than risking a six-week injury by playing him.

“We’ve go a bunch of guys due back after the bye week but we’re not waiting for that, no way. We want a strong result against the Brumbies going into the week off.”

Originally published as Super Rugby: Brumbies’ wing weapons set to attack makeshift Reds backline