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Reds grind their way past Western Force for Super win

Suliasi Vunivalu of the Reds looks on during the round 10 Super Rugby Pacific match between the Queensland Reds and the Western Force at Suncorp Stadium, on April 29, 2023, in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Queensland are well on their way to Super Rugby Pacific finals after grinding out a 31-17 win against the Western Force at Suncorp Stadium.

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A masterful display from halfback Tate McDermott did his Wallabies credentials no harm, finding space at will and carving the Force open to set them on course for the important victory.

They were ahead 21-5 at halftime and looked on course for another whopping win against the Force, but skipper Liam Wright admitted they struggled to maintain their intensity through a scratchy second half.

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“Probably not so good the second half, the first half was pretty nice,” he told Stan Sport.

“We stuck to our gameplan a bit more, we didn’t put them to the sword or anything but that’s credit to the team the Force are, they really stick in there.

“They matched it physically with us … they forced errors right on the line and we couldn’t close the door, but some good creation there which is good to see.”

The Reds’ win takes them to sixth on the table and they’re more than a game clear of ninth in the race for the top eight with five games left before finals.

McDermott, not picked in Eddie Jones’ first national team training camp squad, continued strong form and created two tries for Fraser McReight in a seven-minute stretch, smartly running from two quick taps to create room for the big flanker to power over the line.

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Wright said the Reds found they were getting space in the middle of the park early and decided to exploit it with halfback McDermott steering the ship.

“He had ‘Suli’ (winger Suliasi Vunivalu) there on his hip, just people looking for work there,” he said.

“That’s where we found we were getting the most pay, trying to go through them a bit.

“We were copping some solid tackles from them, but we just had to stick to the gameplan.”

Queensland’s pack took control in all areas and forced penalties at will, discipline again killing the Force with the competi tion’s worst side for penalties per game conceding an other 12.

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The Force’s rolling maul drove Michael Wells over to cut the margin back to 21-10 before Queensland’s George Blake marked his Reds debut with a strong effort from close range.

Zach Kibirige opened the scoring after capitalising on a poor Jordan Petaia handling error, while he picked off a Lynagh pass and took it home minutes from time for his eighth try of the campaign.

Queensland’s James O’Connor impressed at centre in the first half but was substituted at halftime due to an illness.

It wasn’t the 71-20 hammering they copped at the hands of the Reds in round two, but captain Michael Wells was far from pleased with the showing.

“It’s a better performance than that, but it’s a very grey silver lining,” he told Stan Sport.

“I’ll probably have to moderate myself a little bit because it hurts, I really don’t like losing, we didn’t come to lose.

“Discipline probably hurt us a fair bit again, we started good, scored early points, but then they got back in the game by us giving away penalties.

“They did a job on us at scrum time, we profiled what they were going to do and we just didn’t adapt.”

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Soliloquin 1 hour ago
Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

I don’t know the financial story behind the changes that were implemented, but I guess clubs started to lose money, Mourad Boudjellal won it all with Toulon, got tired and wanted to invest in football , the French national team was at its lowest with the QF humiliation in 2015 and the FFR needed to transform the model where no French talent could thrive. Interestingly enough, the JIFF rule came in during the 2009/2010 season, so before the Toulon dynasty, but it was only 40% of the players that to be from trained in French academies. But the crops came a few years later, when they passed it at the current level of 70%.

Again, I’m not a huge fan of under 18 players being scouted and signed. I’d rather have French clubs create sub-academies in French territories like Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and other places that are culturally closer to RU and geographically closer to rugby lands. Mauvaka, Moefana, Taofifenua bros, Tolofua bros, Falatea - they all came to mainland after starting their rugby adventure back home.

They’re French, they come from economically struggling areas, and rugby can help locally, instead of lumping foreign talents.

And even though many national teams benefit from their players training and playing in France, there are cases where they could avoid trying to get them in the French national team (Tatafu).

In other cases, I feel less shame when the country doesn’t believe in the player like in Meafou’s case.

And there are players that never consider switching to the French national team like Niniashvili, Merckler or even Capuozzo, who is French and doesn’t really speak Italian.

We’ll see with Jacques Willis 🥲


But hey, it’s nothing new to Australia and NZ with PI!

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