Opinion
Smithy’s final salvo: Tahs, Reds can give faithful servants send-off they deserve
Wayne Smith
Rugby Union columnistWayne Smith filed this column on the morning of his sad passing on Tuesday. His family wanted his final piece published.
It’s not take two. That moment has passed. But the Waratahs and the Reds now both have the chance to atone for their soulless displays last weekend to hopefully send out Michael Hooper and Brad Thorn with their heads held high.
The players of both Australian teams went into last weekend’s Super Rugby Pacific matches fixated on “doing it for Hoops/Brad” and – let’s be generous – perhaps that affected them. Over the course of the 2023 season, the Tahs and the Reds have played some brilliant rugby. This was nothing like it. What they offered up was lame and lamentable, so much so that Waratahs coach Darren Coleman described his side as “embarrassing”.
Moana Pasifika comprehensively bossed NSW out of the game at Allianz Stadium to claim their first win of the season, 33-24. The Fijian Drua, meanwhile, bombed three tries and still put the Thorn-coached Reds away 41-17.
Hooper will never get to replay his final home match for the Waratahs. Nor will the 19,219 fans who turned out to say goodbye to him. That opportunity is lost, and Coleman rightly felt for the young kids who missed out on the opportunity to cheer and yell.
The only good news is that it really didn’t matter. Win or lose, the Waratahs would still have been playing the Blues at Auckland’s Eden Park in the first of the quarter-finals on Friday night. NSW and Hooper will get their second chance.
Michael Hooper after his final home match for the Waratahs on Friday.Credit: Getty
Few people expect the injury-savaged side to win across the ditch. Save for their 27-22 victory over the Blues in 2009, they haven’t won at Eden Park since 1928. If that year sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because NSW was representing Australia while Queensland rugby was still in limbo following World War I. And it wasn’t just Auckland they defeated. That year the Waratahs also defeated the All Blacks 11-8 in a Test in Christchurch. (New Zealand was so embarrassed about the All Blacks losing five out of 24 matches to NSW in the 1920s that it refuses to acknowledge them as full internationals, which explains why the two countries have different tallies of trans-Tasman Tests.)
Sadly, the days of Cyril Towers et al are long gone and it is safe to say that history will pretty much be working against the Tahs on Friday night. But Hooper warrants the feeling of being right in the thick of combat. Chances are the Blues will ultimately prevail but Hooper deserves to feel that passion one last time in a sky blue jersey. And this almost certainly will be his last chance.
Thankfully, the Drua debacle didn’t turn out to be the end for Thorn. Even though the Reds were humiliated, they had done enough earlier in the season to claim the last play-off spot as, one by one, challenges from the Highlanders, Rebels and Force all evaporated.
But the tank is empty. They have reached the play-offs having lost their last three games. Ironically, the last side they beat is the one they will play in the quarters. On May 12, they downed the previously unbeaten Chiefs 25-22 in New Plymouth. Even against an outfit resting nine players, it still was a victory based on courage, teamwork and discipline, attributes nowhere to be seen in a red jersey in Suva on Saturday.
The fact Brad Thorn’s Queensland are in the Super Rugby play-offs says more about the competition format than the Reds themselves.Credit: Getty
In many ways, the fact the Reds have reached the play-offs highlights the absurdity of awarding finals places to eight teams in a 12 team competition.
Of the Australian teams, only the Brumbies, who finished fourth and will host the Hurricanes in Canberra on Saturday night, deserve to be there.
Yet, just as fans are shaking their heads in dismay, note the reaction of the Fijian crowd. They were ecstatic about the Drua finishing in seventh place and who knows how much benefit will come to Pacific rugby from that single victory.
Infuriatingly, it is impossible to predict which Reds side will turn up on Saturday in Waikato, the ones who wrote the book on how NOT to play the Fijians or the ones who tackle like demons, as at New Plymouth. Consistency was the Thorn trademark as a player but he never was able to teach it to the Reds.
Hooper will head off to his new adventures with the affection of almost everyone he has touched. Perhaps that’s not quite so with Thorn. The Queensland public could never understand why under him the Reds lost so many players. Either they were directly booted out or they departed mysteriously, leaving behind them whispered tales of disgruntlement. You could select a handy Wallabies XV from all of Thorn’s outcasts.
Still, he will head into his 93rd and last game with a six-season coaching win record of 46 per cent (currently 42 wins and a draw). It makes him second only to John Connolly as the long-serving Reds coach of the professional era. He might have taken the side as far as he can, but he too deserves to feel that passion one last time, even if it means he can only squirm in his seat, mentally making tackles.
Thank you, Hoops. Thank you, Thorny.
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