Perese card sees the Reds run free
THE Waratahs’ will not only have to contend with suffering a heavy loss to the Reds to kick off their Super Rugby AU campaign, but are also sweating on the injury to captain Jake Gordon and a possible ban for Izaia Perese following his red card.
Head coach Rob Penney struggled to find any positives from the trip to the Suncorp Stadium, as the Reds claimed a five-try 41-7 victory in Brisbane.
After Michael Hooper and Rob Simmons completed moves overseas, scrum-half Gordon took up the captaincy duties last month but could now miss the majority of the competition with what the ‘Tahs fear is a serious ankle injury.
“It looks like syndesmosis – a high ankle sprain – but it’s too early to tell and he is on crutches,” said Penney. “It will be a big loss. We have just appointed him as our new captain but we do have a young leadership group behind him.”
As For the Reds, their start to 2021 could hardly have been better as Jock Campbell, Alex Mafi, Filipo Daugunu and Ilaisa Droasese all punished Perese for his first-half red card for a dangerous tackle which took Hunter Paisami over the horizontal and dumped him on his head.
Reds head coach Brad Thorn was satisfied by his team’s efforts as they dealt with the favourites tag with a bonus point win.
He said: “There was an abyss during that 35minute period where nothing really happened, but the guys got some pay for their efforts at the end. You definitely take the win and that scoreline before the game.”
Reigning champions Brumbies silenced Western
Force fans on rugby’s homecoming to Perth for the first time in 1,313 days, as Noah Lolesio inspired the visitors to a 27-11 win.
The Force relocated to the Hunter Valley for last year’s inaugural tournament but were back home at their HBF Park base where their bubble was burst by Dan McKellar’s side.
Although far from their best, Noah Lolesio, Ira Simone and Isaac FinesLeleiwasa all struck for the Brumbies, who took a 13-6 lead into half-time after Lolesio had scored all their first-half points.
Centre combination Simone and Len Ikitau linked up two minutes after the restart to stretch the Brumbies lead, with the latter skilfully offloading to Simone for the try.
Fines-Leleiwasa and Tomas Cubelli scored a try for each side within the final eight minutes, when the Brumbies were already home and dry.
McKellar said: “It was good to get a win on an emotional night for the Force.
“We have done a lot of work on our line-speed and I thought our forwards really stood up to put them under the pressure. The boys said at half-time how the ball was starting to get greasy and we got some pay out of that at times.”
Western Force head coach Tim Sampson said: “We gave away some freebies there and couldn’t get into our flow but I felt the referee was a little whistlehappy.”