Reds insist Taniela Tupou under attack because he’s a title threat
Queensland tighthead Taniela Tupou’s scrummaging technique is coming under fire again.
Queensland tighthead Taniela Tupou’s scrummaging technique is coming under fire again, with Brumbies coach Dan McKellar attacking the Reds’ not-so-secret weapon ahead of a potential grand final rematch in Canberra on Saturday week.
Tupou was not at his explosive best at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night but he still more than played his part in Queensland’s 26-7 victory over the Brumbies.
It changed nothing in terms of the final order of the teams, with the Brumbies having already qualified to stage the Super Rugby AU final on September 19, while the Reds will host Melbourne Rebels on Saturday for the right to challenge the ACT in the decider.
The Reds turned around recent perceptions of indiscipline by winning the penalty count 11-9, with Tupou responsible for claiming at least two full-arm penalties at scrum time. But the rulings did not sit well with McKellar or Brumbies captain and tighthead Allan Alaalatoa, who claimed his side’s loosehead Scott Sio was not getting a fair go in his scrum battle with Tupou.
“The scrum has been a frustration for the whole competition,” said McKellar.
“It’s not the loosehead’s job to keep the tighthead up. We have had a number of conversations about it and I know it has been frustrating for the officials as well, so it is something that hopefully will be a little bit tidier in a couple of weeks’ time. But as Allan said, I thought there were a few there where we were harshly done by.”
It doesn’t help that Sio, the Wallabies loosehead, is 187cm tall, to Tupou’s 178cm. Given that the loosehead generally attempt to get underneath the tighthead to disrupt the opposition scrum, that makes it hard for Sio even before the scrum is even set. And the fact that jerseys are skin tight and Tupou is a massive 137kg further exacerbates Sio’s problems in gaining a bind.
The Brumbies also claim Tupou is not keeping his right arm up, effectively closing Sio off.
It’s a tortuous business trying to unravel the dark arts but while the Brumbies believe Tupou is being unfairly favoured by referees, the Reds believe he is being cruelly targeted by the Brumbies because he represents such a threat to their dominance.
“Make no mistake, Taniela is going to become the most expensive rugby player in the world when he next comes off contract,” said the Reds general manager of professional rugby Sam Cordingley, the former Wallabies halfback. “He is such a dominant force that people are going for him.”
Scott Johnson, Rugby Australia’s director of rugby, was so concerned that Tupou was being victimised by referees that he had a number of referees examine his technique while at the same time asking respected former players, including former Wallabies and Brumbies skipper Stephen Moore, to run the ruler over him.
Moore reached the conclusion that Tupou was scrummaging legally and that he was getting himself into such dominant positions in the scrum that referees were generally going to reward him with the penalty.
That RA review seems only to have heightened the issue and it is coming to a head, as all sides realise he now looms as the single most influential player coming into the Super Rugby AU finals.
Before the Reds are able to challenge the Brumbies in Canberra, they must first get by the Rebels this weekend, with Melbourne coach Dave Wessels insisting he will have no complaints about the scrum as long as the match officials take an even-handed approach.
“I haven’t had a close enough look at the Reds scrum yet to know what Allan and Dan were talking about,” Wessels told The Australian on Sunday. “As long as the referees allow a fair contest and judge everybody the same, that’s fine. But what you don’t want is referees going in with a preconceived idea about one scrum being better than the other.
“I think our scrum the last two weeks has performed well and has been the dominant scrum. We performed really well against their scrum in Queensland last time. That was a very even contest and that’s all you ask of the officials – as long as everything is judged the same and the rules apply to both teams, that’s fine, no problems.”
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