Reds promising a change-up in attack against the Lions

The Reds are promising to attack to a different tune against the Lions at Suncorp Stadium.

Queensland captain Samu Kerevi at training in Brisbane yesterday. The Reds are promising a slightly more nuanced attack against the Lions. Picture: AAP

For those who question why Brad Thorn has turned his back on Quade Cooper, examine the way the Queensland Reds attack the Lions at Suncorp Stadium this afternoon.

Inside centre and captain Samu Kerevi will be making thunderous runs down Lions five-eighth Elton Jantjies’ channel all afternoon.

It’s what the Reds do, especially against a playmaker of Jantjies’ shaky reputation as a defender. The team from Johannesburg has lost only three matches this season, to the Blues, Jaguares and Crusaders. Against the Blues, Jantjies made just five tackles out of 10, he missed three out of nine against the team from Buenos Aires and a reasonably respectable two out 10 against the Crusaders.

Jantjies has proved he can tackle. Witness the fact that he stopped Taqele Naiyaravoro during the Waratahs match last week, but he is inconsistent — in the same way that Cooper is — and it only takes one miss and that can be the ball game.

Yet while Kerevi and Queensland will probably profit from attacking the 10 channel tomorrow, the hope is they will rely on at least some form of attack that doesn’t resemble a brick through a plate-glass window. The Reds have only one player who figures in the top-10 attacking stats across a range of measures, carries, metres gained, line breaks, defenders beaten — Kerevi.

Zacharia de Bruin would not have a team that are leading the competition if he did not know how to read where the Reds will be coming from.

Indeed, he gave a pretty good hint during the week that he knows precisely how they will go about their work.

“Their number 12 (Kerevi) is their best player and a very direct runner,” de Bruin told South African media.

“He will make cutbacks into Elton Jantjies. However, Elton — the way he stopped that big monster of the Waratahs (Naiyaravoro) last week — he is a very gutsy player and defends well.”

So it would be fair to assume that if the Reds were hoping to achieve an element of surprise with their strong-running centre play, that horse has bolted. So, what now for Queensland?

On the evidence of this season, in which they have scored the lowest number of tries in Super Rugby, 15, the normal answer would be: Not much. But indications are that the Reds have taken on board all the criticism about their lack of deception.

Even Kerevi has come on board. Indeed, given that he is about the most closely-guarded player in the competition, he appears to be an enthusiastic convert to a slightly more elaborate attacking mode, announcing that his new aim is to get as many “second touches” on the ball as he can.

“I’ve got to be smarter in that area because I don’t want to be using up too much energy running through people,” Kerevi said. “Defenders in Super Rugby are really tough and for me it’s about helping my teammates out.”

Queensland really haven’t had an X-Factor in attack this year. Plenty of Y-Factor — as in ‘Why on earth did they do that?’ – but nothing to make the opposition second-guess. Until today. Their X-factor is their five-eighth Hamish Stewart, who has never started a match before. Indeed, they have two unknowns, with left winger Jordan Petaia also making his run-on debut.

Add their ages together and they just equal one George Smith, so it is wise to keep expectations in check but they will be different and as Bill Murray’s character observes in Groundhog Day, different is good.

Their tackling, however, doesn’t need to be different. It’s the second best in the competition, just a smidgen behind the Highlanders.

But what it needs to be is more alert and hardworking, The Queensland side have given away 13 first-phase tries out of 31 conceded this season. Indeed, 21 of those tries have come in the first three phases.

The Lions have lost only one of their last 11 matches against Australian teams — which means, just as a matter of interest, that they previously won only 11 of 57 games against Down Under opponents — so the expectation is that the Reds will put up a good show before quietly going down to fifth straight loss.

Frankly, that has very little appeal.