Rugby must find a balance between the needs of national sides and keeping fans happy
It may make sense for national teams to insist provincial sides rest stars on occasion, writes Andrew Slack, but did big names need a week one vacation before the Super Rugby season had started?
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So Kurtley Beale and Beauden Barrett are “rested” on the second weekend of February in the hope they’ll be fully fit and firing for November 2?
The All Blacks have a solid case they’ll be required on that date, and while I have don’t wish to be pessimistic when the season has only just started, the bow appears well stretched to suggest the Wallabies will also be alive and kicking by the time the World Cup final is contested in Tokyo.
I’m all for national teams been given a common sense priority over provincial sides when it comes to the grey area of player burnout, but in week one of a Super Rugby competition that, at the moment needs all the oomph and star power it can muster, will the absence of Beale and Barrett really help anybody?
The strength and conditioning gurus and team managements have obviously come to some arrangement as to how best allow their gun players to make the most of their talents, but a week one vacation before work has started?
Find me a reputable clairvoyant who can suggest when Barrett and Beale might have some injury niggles later in the season and we can give them a rest then.
Rugby badly needs to remember the fans and I’d have thought Waratahs and Hurricanes supporters deserved to have their best team represent them at season’s start.
After the barren returns of recent years, Reds supporters will be expecting an all hands on deck approach to their opening game of the season against the Highlanders on Friday. Wallaby glory can wait its turn. Reds progress is the main game for Brad Thorn.
Dunedin is not the easiest venue at which to start a campaign but it might be a better option than kicking off at home.
The fact not many people would expect this young side to win, potentially releases them to some degree from scoreboard pressure, and they can go about trying to execute all the things they have practised in the off-season.
Ball security must become an eighty minute challenge for them and if they can kick better (a lot better) than last year, there is the raw talent to make a contest of every match.
The experience Hamish Stewart, Angus Scott-Young, Brandon Paenga-Amosa and others gained last year should translate to enhanced composure under pressure in 2019 and with match winning individuals like Taniela Tupou and Jordan Petaia on board as well as the experience of Scott Higginbotham, Izack Rodda and Samu Kerevi, hopes for a much improved winning record is not just the kind of blind optimism that floats around every pre-season.
Bryce Hegarty was a sensible signing and the depth in most positions is okay, although the best midfield combination might be something Thorn will need time to sort.
As with any other team in the tournament, injuries to key players and a bit of bad luck at the wrong time will scupper the best laid plans.
Most fans will be satisfied if, come mid-June, the Reds are still somewhere near contention for a finals place, and if so, hopefully no Wallaby will be forced to have a week off.
While Thorn will be comfortable with the standards he set last year, there might be others rueing the fact the return of Quade Cooper and James Slipper to Super Rugby on Friday night proved they are not spent forces. While I’m not sure I agree with former Wallaby Greg Martin that Cooper was “extraordinary”, and that it was “ the most commanding fly half performance by an Australian fly half in years,” nobody could argue it was anything but a very solid return to the big time for the enigmatic number 10.
Performing week in, week out is now his challenge if he intends to send some nose-thumbing Ballymore’s way.
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