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In-form forward joins Queensland Reds’ growing list of casualties
By AAP
In-form lock Seru Uru has joined the Queensland Reds' growing list of casualties as coach Les Kiss avoids turning into a "culdesac of doom" to escape their Super Rugby Pacific slide.
Uru had thumb surgery on Monday and will miss at least four weeks while merging centre Josh Flook (shoulder) is also in doubt for Friday's clash in Brisbane with the Highlanders.
Co-captain Tate McDermott and fellow Wallaby Fraser McReight both copped three-week suspensions for their foul pay in a gutting loss to Moana Pasifika in New Zealand last Friday.
Kiss believes there have been "inconsistencies" in suspensions this season but that the punishments were no surprise and that "it all evens out".
"It wasn't ideal in the game, fairly costly as we saw," Kiss said of McDermott's suspension.
"He's ridden that hard, as he would. It's uncharacteristic but it's been dealt with, we'll move on."
McReight's suspension could yet be reduced by one game, while Kiss said veteran playmaker James O'Connor (hamstring) would not play against the Highlanders.
Pasifika scored in the final moments to pinch a rare win and consign the Reds to a third-straight loss after they had surged to a 3-1 start under the new coach.
At 3-4 they sit sixth and eye a crunch clash with the 10th-placed Highlanders (2-5) at Suncorp Stadium.
"Now there's a different expectation about how we respond," he said.
"The numbers say our error rate at the wrong time of the game was costly.
"We're careful not to go down culdesacs of doom you can't recover from.
"We're just addressing the real critical things in front of us that we're trying to get right."
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Smith is playing a different game with the rest of the backs struggling to understand. That's the problem with so called playmakers, if nobody gets what they're doing then it often just leads to a turnover. It gets worse when Borthwick changes one of them, which is why they don't score points at the end. Sometimes having a brilliant playmaker can be problematic if a team cannot be built around them. Once again Borthwick seems lacking in either coaching or selection. I can't help but think it's the latter coupled with pressure to select the big name players.
Lastly, his forward replacements are poor and exposed either lack of depth or selection pressure. Cole hemorrhages scrum penalties whenever he comes on, opponents take advantage of the England scrum and close out the game. Is that the best England can offer?
Go to commentsWhich Australian coaches would be acceptable to coach the All Blacks ?
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