Queensland Reds centre Josh Flook to return from a shoulder injury in Anzac round battle with Blues
While Jordan Petaia will miss the rest of the Super Rugby Pacific season, one of his Queensland Reds teammates will return for Saturday’s clash with the Blues.
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Josh Flook will make a timely return from a shoulder injury to start at outside centre for the Queensland Reds on Saturday night against the Blues at Suncorp Stadium.
With Wallabies star Jordan Petaia ruled out for the rest of the Super Rugby Pacific season after dislocating his shoulder in the Reds’ 31-0 thrashing of the Highlanders last Friday, Flook’s return to the centres is a boost for the Queenslanders.
In one other backline change, Junior Wallabies winger Tim Ryan will make his starting debut for the Reds, replacing winger Mac Grealy, who has been left out of the 23-man match-day squad as part of “workload management”.
“I’m excited for the opportunity,” Ryan said.
“Just getting involved to make myself an option as often as possible is probably the most important thing I’ve learnt.”
There is also a change in the forwards, with lock Angus Blyth starting in place of Cormac Daly, who is nursing “injury niggles”.
The Reds are chasing their fifth win of the season but face a tough Anzac round challenge against the second-placed Blues, who demolished the ACT Brumbies by 39 points in Auckland last Saturday.
Queensland coach Les Kiss said: “We know the task ahead of us on Saturday. We’ve got to put forward our best team performance because the Blues were fairly compelling with what they did to the Brumbies last weekend.
“The Blues are a very good team. The fact we’ve done OK against a couple of New Zealand teams this season is good but this is a different kettle of fish.”
Blues coach Vern Cotter is wary of the Reds on their home soil.
“We’re under no illusion as to how difficult it’s going to be to play them up there in Queensland,” Cotter said.
“We’re playing on their turf and we feel they’ve simplified their game, looking to come at us reasonably direct on Saturday.
“They’re a team that defensively are quite good at holding players up and they’ll try to slow our ball down, so we’ve had an emphasis on ensuring we deal with that this week.
“We need to make sure we can get fast ball, and if we can I think we can create breaches and hopefully do enough damage to come away with the win.”
Reds: Alex Hodgman, Matt Faessler, Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, Ryan Smith, Angus Blyth, Liam Wright, John Bryant, Harry Wilson, Kalani Thomas, Tom Lynagh, Tim Ryan, Hunter Paisami, Josh Flook, Suliasi Vunivalu, Jock Campbell. Bench: Josh Nasser, Peni Ravai, Sef Fa’agase, Connor Vest, Joe Brial, Louis Werchon, Lawson Creighton, Floyd Aubrey.
Blues: Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Soane Vikena, Angus Ta’avao, Patrick Tuipulotu, Sam Darry, Anton Segner, Dalton Papali’i, Hoskins Sotutu, Taufa Funaki, Harry Plummer, Mark Tele’a, Bryce Heem, Rieko Ioane, AJ Lam, Cole Forbes. Bench: Kurt Eklund, Joshua Fusitu’a, Marcel Renata, Laghlan McWhannell, James Thompson, Sam Nock, Corey Evans, Caleb Clarke.
Originally published as Queensland Reds centre Josh Flook to return from a shoulder injury in Anzac round battle with Blues
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