Rebels’ Mike Harris pays high price in win over Force

The Melbourne Rebels paid a hefty price for their 27-22 victory over the Western Force yesterday.

Rebels winger Sefu Naivalu scores a try against Western Force at AAMI Park. Picture: Colleen Petch

The Melbourne Rebels paid a hefty price for their 27-22 victory over the Western Force yesterday when five-eighth Mike Harris was injured just hours before he was due to catch a flight to the Sunshine Coast to restart his Wallabies career after a three-year break.

In a virtual replay of the opening match of the season, also against the Force, Harris barely made it to the 10-minute mark before he again damaged his hamstring setting up the first try of the match.

That initial injury had cost him 10 weeks of the season and he had only just regained the five-eighth position, but that was enough for Wallabies coach Michael Cheika to suspect his 10-Test experience might be useful in the midfield in the absence of Kurtley Beale.

There certainly was ample ­evidence of that as Harris split the defence of prop Guy Millar and five-eighth Peter Grant to burst through the line before sending centre Reece Hodge galloping 30m for an excellent try in the 11th minute.

But that was the end of his involvement in the match, with team medicos diagnosing a soft tissue injury that almost certainly will rule him out of this week’s ­Wallabies training camp in Caloundra ahead of the three-Test ­series against England.

Harris’s misfortune was counterbalanced by Rebels winger Sefu Naivalu, who before the match was invited by Cheika to join the Wallabies in camp as a training extra. He is not an official squad member but there is no doubt that winger is one of the most fluid positions in the Australian team at present and Naivalu pushed his name forward by posting two timely tries yesterday.

Both came at critical moments in the match. He scored his first just after halftime when he scrambled over in the corner from a chain-passing movement along the line; his second was even more important because it provided the Rebels with their eventual winning margin.

Halfback Nick Stirzaker had targeted Grant, the weakest member of the Force backline in defence, with a run from the scrumbase and then slipped a pass to the straight-running Naivalu.

Yet there was an answering try-scoring double from the Force as well, indeed from one of the Wallabies wingers, Luke Morahan.

There are times when the lanky left winger is almost untouchable on the rugby field and he was at his peerless best as he answered Hodge’s try with an even better one in the 16th minute, catching a Grant crosskick as it sailed over Naivalu’s despairing leap, then grubbering ahead down the touchline to regather and score.

By comparison, his second crossing seemed almost pedestrian. The Force went through their phases on the Rebels tryline before Morahan spotted a mismatch and speared inside prop Toby Smith to score.

On a surprisingly stable AAMI Park surface which showed it will stand up to the June 18 Test against England, the Rebels metaphorically regained their footing as well.

The win broke a three-match losing streak after successive losses to the Blues, Brumbies and Chiefs sending the Melbourne team toppling out of the Australian conference leadership. It takes them to six wins for the season, one behind the Waratahs, two behind the Brumbies, and while all hope of a place in the playoffs is now gone, it will send them into the month-long break for the June Test window in a more positive frame of mind.

“We wanted to start really fast and build from there,” said Melbourne captain Stirzaker. “It was really pleasing to get the result and get back into the winner’s circle. It’s been a tough last month for us.”

There were some anxious ­moments for the Force’s Dane Haylett-Petty, who looks to be well in contention for a fullback or wing spot against England, as he was heavily targeted by the Rebels defence.

He had to go off for a concussion test and, although he was quieter than normal, the match ended with him on desperate attack, looking for the try the Force needed to pull off a rare and dramatic win against Melbourne.