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Fresh Rebels team prepared to stay away from Covid hot-bed Melbourne for Super Rugby AU
By AAP
The Rebels are prepared to match their code rivals Storm and stay away from COVID-19 hot-bed Melbourne for the duration of Super Rugby AU, if required.
The NRL powerhouse has declared they may have to stay in their new Queensland base for the entire season and veteran Melbourne playmaker Matt Toomua says they will do the same to ensure the new rugby competition continues.
Ahead of their opening Super Rugby AU match against the Brumbies in Canberra, where they have relocated to, Toomua says he expects times to get tough.
But he said his team were up for it.
"It's a time of doing things for the greater good and by no means do we feel like that's our job done," Toomua said
"We still have our ambitions to win this tournament, as everyone does, so I'm not saying we won't face our challenges throughout it.
"Things like homesickness, the novelty all wearing off, the stresses at home.
"It's a little bit different than what we've faced in the past but I'm confident we've got the environment to help guys through that."
Toomua will play his 100th Super Rugby match on Saturday night, lining up against the club where started his career, and Toomua admitted it was a strange time to be bringing up his milestone.
Excitement has been building for the new Super Rugby AU tournament which begins this weekend.
"It is odd, but we're all just excited to play - I don't think I need any more motivation," the 30-year-old said.
"It's a bit fitting coming back here to have it in Canberra ... but coming back from this COVID thing it's very much overshadowed.
"There's a lot of fresh blood out there and I think it's a cool little chapter we're about to write for Australian rugby."
He felt Brumbies youngster Noah Lolesio got the better of him in their round two meeting and was looking to even things up even though he felt the Rebels were hitting their straps when the regular Super competition was shut down in March after seven rounds, with the Brumbies runaway Australian conference leaders.
"When this new competition happened, the Waratahs were pretty happy we were all starting fresh on zero points, the Brumbies were pretty filthy, and we were pretty ambivalent.
"If you look at the competition you probably think Brumbies away is one of the tougher matches and we've got that round one and that gets you going, which is good."
Injuries have opened the door for four players to make their Melbourne Rebels debut.
The Rebels will be without Wallabies No.8 Isi Naisairani, who has a hamstring injury, with a number of new faces in their pack.
Former Sunwolves lock Michael Stolberg has forced his way into the starting side, 21-year-old Josh Kemeny will wear the No.6 jersey for the first time after impressing during the COVID break, while forwards Efitusi Maafu and Trevor Hosea have been included on the bench.
Hooker Anaru Rangi will miss the clash with a knee injury, with Test rake Jordan Uelese starting.
Rebels: Dane Haylett-Petty, Andrew Kellaway, Reece Hodge, Billy Meakes, Marika Koroibete, Matt Toomua, Ryan Louwrens, Michael Wells, Richard Hardwick, Josh Kemeny, Michael Stolberg, Matt Philip, Pone Fa'amausili, Jordan Uelese, Matt Gibbon. Reserves: Efitusi Maafu, Cameron Orr, Jermaine Ainsley, Trevor Hosea, Esei Haangana, Rob Leota, Frank Lomani, Andrew Deegan.
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Latest Comments
Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
Go to commentsYou always get idiots who go overboard. What else is new? I ignore them. Why bother?
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