Melbourne Rebels aiming to finish unlucky season with win against Reds

INJURIES notwithstanding, Tony McGahan says the Melbourne Rebels’ harrowing loss to the Crusaders last Saturday wasn’t good enough.

The Rebels will farewell Luke Jones in the match against the Reds.

INJURIES notwithstanding, Tony McGahan says the Melbourne Rebels’ harrowing loss to the Crusaders last Saturday wasn’t good enough.

But the coach hasn’t spent the week harping on about the ugly 85-26 defeat.

The Rebels travel to Suncorp Stadium to play the Reds on Friday night in a game that will bring down the curtain on what has been a desperately unlucky campaign.

The Melbourne side, who with a win against the Reds can still equal last year’s club best mark of seven in a season, has 11 players unavailable for the Australian Conference derby — a figure that would have been higher if not for the returns of flanker Sean McMahon, lock Luke Jones and outside centre Mitch Inman.

The Rebels will farewell Luke Jones in the match against the Reds.

Despite the injury toll, it wasn’t until a fortnight ago that the Rebels officially fell out of finals contention.

Much of that is owed to the fact that the country’s newest Super Rugby franchise has won four of its five games against Australian opposition this season, losing only to the Brumbies at home in Round 12.

But the sight of assistant coach Morgan Turinui lining up in the backline in training drills during the side’s last training session in Melbourne on Wednesday only goes to demonstrate that the Rebels would have been purely making up the numbers had they secured an unlikely finals berth.

The Crusaders loss was a low point in what has been an otherwise competitive campaign.

And while McGahan wasn’t keen to totally brush the loss to one side, he said individuals would have learnt more about themselves rather than the team as a collective.

“I think you would have been beating a dead horse with one game to go,” McGahan said.

“If it was a different part of the season you would have reviewed the hell out of it and made a big thing of it, but with one game to go, where we were (that didn’t happen).

“We were just focused on the individual process to look at those areas (that went wrong), but more as a team we needed to make sure we got back together quickly and on the (training) field on Monday ready to go.”

Injuries to fullback Mike Harris (hamstring) and Tamati Ellison (calf) will rob the pair of a chance to play one last game for the club, but foundation Rebel Jones will get a swan song after returning from concussion.

“Luke’s been a great player for the Rebels over a long period of time,” McGahan said.

“We wish him and his family well in France, but also hopefully look forward to welcoming him back at some stage.”

Originally published as Melbourne Rebels aiming to finish unlucky season with win against Reds