Waratahs rescue season with scrappy win over Reds

The Waratahs have rescued their struggling season from the scrapheap with a gritty two-point win over a clueless Queensland.

Waratahs player Israel Folau crosses over to score a try during thematch between the Queensland Reds and the NSW Waratahs at Suncorp Stadium.

The Waratahs have rescued their struggling Super Rugby season from the scrapheap with a gritty two-point victory over a gallant but utterly clueless Queensland Reds at Suncorp Stadium yesterday.

Had it not been for the game management of Tahs five-eighth Bernard Foley and fullback Israel Folau’s ability to sniff out a try, the season would effectively have been as good as gone for NSW.

It still may be a struggle from here, given that the only wins they have scored so far have been at the expense of Queensland — 30-10 in the opening round, 15-13 yesterday. Not since 1997 have the Reds lost their first five games of the season, so they are a modest measuring stick at best.

Still, NSW coach Daryl Gibson not unnaturally grasped the win tightly to his chest.

“It certainly keeps us in pace in our conference and next week we have the Rebels,” he said. “It’s important to us to keep winning. We ground it out today … but we’re ­really searching for that complete performance, one where we’re playing the style of rugby that we want to play.”

This wasn’t it. Indeed, this was the very antithesis of the running rugby the Tahs aspire to. But it was precisely the game that the Reds set out to play, one that played to their set-piece strength in the heat and rain.

The Tahs scrambled by on a Weight Watchers diet of just 34 per cent of possession as the Queensland forwards gobbled up all the Easter Sunday spoils. Their scrum was a dead weight liability and so ineffectual that the first seven penalties of the match went to the Reds, all but one rewarding their dominant set piece.

By that stage, Queensland had been awarded a penalty try and were scrumming the Tahs, embarrassingly, humiliatingly, into the turf.

Trouble was that the Reds, apart from playing to their deadly scrum, were utterly bereft of ideas in attack. Not that this stopped them because they were keen. God knows they were keen, with countless tackles rocking the men in blue. But they didn’t know how to take it from there. The skills, the composure, the game management … all were beyond them.

Twice they were held up over the line. Three times more they squandered tries by butchering the basics. Where was the catch-draw-pass when lock Cadeyrn Neville burst into the clear with winger Eto Nabuli outside him and only Foley to beat.

In the end he threw the pass not one metre forward but two. So too when Samu Kerevi had a two-on-one and threw the ball into touch. Or when he and winger Junior ­Lalioifi had the ball at the toe and somehow Reece Robinson saved the day.

Seriously, never has more inventiveness and ingenuity been displayed in not scoring a try. The 17,247 fans groaned in unison as the wasted opportunities mounted.

By contrast, the Tahs were able to pluck their two tries out of nowhere. Standout No 8 Jed Holloway burst nearly 50m from a scrum in the 18th minute before the defence collared him but then halfback Nick Phipps was on hand to fling a huge pass to Folau on the bounce for him to score.

Then, right on halftime, with Queensland throwing everything at the defence, Tahs captain ­Michael Hooper snaffled a turnover, set Foley on a harem-scarem run to the posts, and who was there to benefit but Folau again as he waltzed over for his third try of the season.

Astonishingly, that enabled the Tahs to go to the halftime break 12-7 ahead, while the Reds were left scratching their head that, at the very least, they had wasted an easy opportunity to put over a field goal. The Reds were reduced to 14 men just four minutes after the interval when hooker Andrew Ready was given a yellow card for kneeing his opposite number Hugh Roach in the head.

“I reckon I’ve packed in a few more scrums than Mr (George) Ayoub, the TMO, and you look at the opposition hooker and he’s in the middle of the scrum, lying on the ground, in a position that he shouldn’t be, then maybe there should be some yellow cards before that point in time,” said Reds co-coach Nick Stiles.

Stiles also raised his eyebrows at the referee, New Zealander Ben O’Keefe, missing Foley’s apparent knock-on just before he hoofed the ball downfield and the Tahs were able to trap Reds fullback Karmichael Hunt into what turned out to be the match-winning penalty.

“Without doubt,” said Stiles when asked if had been a knock-on. “But, hey, the game is done.”