Melbourne Rebels to use inaugural rugby 10s event as tune-up for Super Rugby season

WHILE he suggests the modified game will be “a bit of fun”, Melbourne Rebels star Reece Hodge insists his team is taking the inaugural rugby 10s event deadly seriously.

Reece Hodge says the Rebels will use the Global Tens tournament as a tune-up for the Super season.

WHILE he suggests the modified game will be “a bit of fun”, Melbourne Rebels star Reece Hodge insists his team is taking the inaugural rugby 10s event deadly seriously with less than two weeks to go until the start of the Super Rugby season.

The two-day event at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium pits together 14 teams from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, Samoa and France.

With 10-minute halves, 10 men on the field and eight on the bench with rolling substitutes, the Rebels will play the Waikato Chiefs and Japan’s Panasonic Wild Knights, before playing the NSW Waratahs in their final pool game on Sunday morning.

Reece Hodge says the Rebels will use the Global Tens tournament as a tune-up for the Super season.

The top two in the pool make the quarterfinals, with knockout games proceeding from there.

Captain Nic Stirzaker said last week that the Rebels had done next to no preparation for the 10s format, but Hodge said attention had turned to the new competition following on from the club’s trial loss to the Western Force on the Gold Coast on Monday night.

“We want to have a bit of fun,” Hodge said.

“That’s what the tournament is for, it’s a new format, exciting, and it’s just like other sports do with Twenty20 cricket, the Fast4 tennis and the Fast5 netball.

“I think everyone’s pretty excited to get out there and play, but we can’t take it lightly either.

“We’ve only got two more trials - and that’s including the 10s weekend - before Round 1.

“So we need to get a bit of physicality in, a bit of speed, test our fitness and where we’re at.

“It’s a great opportunity to get some work in a contested situation.”

The Rebels play the Auckland Blues in the season opener at AAMI Park on February 23.

Hodge featured for the Wallabies during the European Spring Tour at the end of last year.

But having since had a five-week break, the 22-year-old back said he is ready to jump back in to the action.

“I was watching on Monday night and itching to get out there and have a run around,” he said.

“I’m feeling good, the body is good and both physically and mentally I’m ready to get back in to things.”

GLOBAL RUGBY 10S

Saturday-Sunday

Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane

MELBOURNE REBELS

v Chiefs (NZL), Sat, 1pm

v Wild Knights (JPN), Sat, 4.33pm

v NSW Waratahs, Sunday, 11am

FORMAT

- 10-a-side, eight on the bench, unlimited substitutes

- Five-man scrums

- Conversions taken as drop kicks

- 10-minute halves

- Four pools, top two in each make quarterfinals

- Final, Sunday, 6.40pm

Originally published as Melbourne Rebels to use inaugural rugby 10s event as tune-up for Super Rugby season