Waratahs haven’t lost back-to-back games in last three Super Rugby seasons

THE Waratahs have had the bye week to stew on their brutal loss to bitter rival the Brumbies. But history suggests the Tahs’ next opponent is in deep trouble.

Michael Hooper after the Waratahs loss to the Brumbies.

​MICHAEL Hooper has defended the Waratahs’ maligned scrum and backed them to bounce back from early season problems against the Highlanders​ at Allianz Stadium.

And bouncing back, it turns out, is something the Waratahs do pretty well.

NSW will take on the 2015 champion Highlanders after a bye week provided an extra week to stew on their last-start defeat to the Brumbies in Canberra.

​Consecutive defeats would see the Tahs ​go 1-2 and drop down the Super Rugby table, but history shows back-to-back losses have become rare for NSW in recent years.

The Waratahs are Super Rugby’s bounce back kings: they have only dropped two straight games twice in the last four seasons, and not once in the past three.

The next best teams in terms of rallying after a loss are the Brumbies and Crusaders, who have only had back-to-back losses on four occasions since 2013, followed by the Chiefs (6).

The worst offenders are the Blues, who have dropped consecutive games 22 times.

“As a team, we hate losing,” Hooper said. “After the loss to the Brumbies, I hated that even more. Especially one that was so tight, so physical. It was a tough loss.”

Prop Paddy Ryan echoed his skipper’s sentiments, saying it was the team’s abhorrence towards defeat that helped them respond.

“The last three years we haven’t liked any defeat, any time it has come,” Ryan said.

“I feel like we usually react quite well to them, even though we hate them. Like any team does. We have tried to take as much as we can out of that Brumbies game.”

Players usually itch to get back on the field quickly after a loss, so waiting two weeks has been stoked the fire even more for the Tahs.

“I think we will respond well,” coach Daryl Gibson said.

“It has given us the extra week to really hone and work on the technical issues we felt we had out of the Brumbies game. We are really keen to play some rugby. We have only played two games, and we feel we have to get out and show what we can do. In the Brumbies game we had 27% of the ball, and we are a ball in hand team. We are really keen to get back on track.”

One area the Waratahs will come under scrutiny — both from the Highlanders and the public — is the front row. The new combination of Ryan and Angus Ta’avao has struggled, particularly against the Brumbies, but Gibson resisted a selection change, saying he wanted to back his engine room.

“You have to give people an opportunity to say hey we had a bad day. This is an opportunity to go away and work on it,” he said.

Former Wallaby skipper Phil Kearns said this week the NSW scrum is “way down on where it should be” but Hooper is confident a strong set-piece platform is very close.

“From all the footage I have watched, over the past two games, it is just minor things, that we can change to really get the result we want and the outcome we want,” Hooper said.

“It is not huge things. It is not personnel, it is not massive issues there. It is a slight tweak of what we want to do in the scrum to get it right.

“Walking away from the Brumbies game, we were able to look at that and say “we are not as bad as everyone is saying we are”. We are actually close to being really successful and really good.”

Hooper admitted the Tahs had not hit their straps so far this season, but even up against a “creative” and “hardworking” Highlanders side, the skipper believes NSW can finally unfurl their flag at home.

“We have had moments of excellence but we have had bits where we have faded off and where we haven’t looked sharp, and haven’t looked like we have in previous years,” he said.

“We have been rolling at 50-60 per cent of where we want to play at. If you play at 100 per cent you play a perfect game and I don’t think that’s achievable. But we are going to strive to go close to that in every match, every week.”