1
Joe Schmidt watches on as Jock Campbell delivers pre-season masterclass
By AAP
Jock Campbell knew he wasn't Eddie Jones' type but also that he wasn't playing well enough to warrant another Test crack anyway.
It's a "clean slate" now under new Wallabies mentor Joe Schmidt, who was in the crowd in Roma to watch the Queensland Reds' fullback carve up NSW Waratahs in Saturday's Super Rugby Pacific trial.
The fluid mover set up two tries with crisp passing and evasive running.
In between, he made a clean break from broken play to score one himself in a dominant half.
At 29-0 the game was over at the break, with Campbell substituted for Jordan Petaia in a reminder of the talent new Reds coach Les Kiss has at his disposal.
Campbell's understated style has meant he's worked for every cap as he summitted from club footy.
But he had a fan in former Reds coach Brad Thorn, who said he reminded him of Darren Lockyer and Ben Smith.
Rennie eventually saw it too and offered Campbell a chance on the 2022 spring tour, but he fell quickly off the radar under Jones' tenure.
"Eddie, you listen to him talk and the first thing he says it that he's all about big and powerful," Campbell told AAP.
"But I didn't play as good as I would have wanted to last year anyway.
"Hopefully, Les does appreciate me but I can't control what the coach likes, so I don't bother thinking about that.
"I just want to focus on the Reds winning because we've got a good roster and close isn't really good enough any more.
"That's my goal this year, see how good we can get."
Campbell watched from afar as his Reds' Test mates battled last year before Jones was eventually replaced by Schmidt after their historically poor World Cup.
"It was tumultuous as a fan and as a player, even though I wasn't in the inner sanctum like I was with Dave," said Campbell.
"I was just feeling for the guys like Jordy (Petaia) and Tate (McDermott).
"The effort they were putting in and to get those results, under a lot of pressure.
"I felt for them, I know it sucks."
He said Kiss's arrival at Ballymore to replace long-time coach Thorn had helped deal with the Wallabies pain.
"I'm not sure the change was needed, but I definitely think a new coach, everyone here's trying to impress," he said.
"You go up a level just naturally and with Eddie going it's a clean slate once again, like it was 12 months ago."
The Reds host the Waratahs at Suncorp Stadium in their season-opener on February 24.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Paddy Jackson's second season at Lyon is all but over – report
3
Jake White: Marcus Smith was lucky to stay on for 60 minutes
4
Former Bok boss Allister Coetzee replaced by legend as head of Namibia
5
Latest Comments
Jake - thanks for the analysis. Agree.
Also would say that England have built a very aggressive defensive system, which is likely to keep opponents to low scores, especially as they settle into it. The NZ tries were well executed, and it is going to take that to create scoring chances against this England team. We will no doubt see more of that when the Boks go up against them.
But the overriding message for me is that they could not execute on the basics in the last quarter. Whether or not England should have been in that position, the fact is that they were positioned to win and could not do the basics well enough to close it out. The reason I find that really problematic is that this is exactly what I thought Borthwick was all about - that he was not targeting the flashy stuff (at least not yet), and was really putting in place a core that could be built on going forward.
Unfortunately what we saw was a team that was clearly unable to raise their game enough to win the arm wrestle in the last few minutes. That feels like a coaching miss.
Go to commentsEffectively yeah, I like the move from Razor, reward those that play well when they get a chance (happened first for Tamaiti over Ofa).
I think he's got room for improvement still too, so happy that he's been told that he needs to perform better if he wants to come straight back in.
Go to comments