[2016 Super Rugby] Rebels vs. Highlanders (Round 5) 26/03/2016

[TRF_heineken]

Venue: AAMI Park
Time: 10:45 CAT (SA, GMT+2)​

 

[0tago]

This won't be a walk in the park for us, the Rebels have a really good hardworking loose forward trio, old boy Thompson, McMahon and Timani is really good at lock. We'll have to be very careful and I hope our defense is better this week. We should still win, but we really need to improve on our 2nd half defensive efforts.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I agree the Rebels need to be taken seriously. I expect the Highlanders to pull through easily enough (relatively speaking) though if they can maintain focus. At least that's the route I'm going with my Superbru predictions and which I think would be the conservative's choice; 'Landers by 8. I do know the Rebels are a team that I tend to underappreciate thugh so I won't say I'm overly confident in my prediction.

 

[Jaguares]

Rebels

1. Toby Smith , 2. James Hanson , 3. Laurie Weeks , 4. Luke Jones , 5. Lopeti Timani , 6. Jordy Reid , 7. Sean McMahon (captain) , 8. Adam Thomson , 9. Ben Meehan , 10. Jack Debreczeni , 11. Tom English , 12. Mitch Inman , 13. Tamati Ellison , 14. Dom Shipperley , 15. Jonah Placid

Replacements:

16. Pat Leafa , 17. Cruze Ah Nau , 18. Jamie Hagan , 19. Sam Jeffries , 20. Scott Fuglistaller , 21. Nic Stirzaker , 22. Dan Hawkins , 23. Reece Hodge

Highlanders

1. Brendon Edmonds , 2. Ash Dixon , 3. Siosiua Halanukonuka , 4. Mark Reddish , 5. Joe Wheeler , 6. Luke Whitelock , 7. Shane Christie (cc) , 8. Liam Squire , 9. Aaron Smith , 10. Lima Sopoaga , 11. Pat Osborne , 12. Rob Thompson , 13. Malakai Fekitoa , 14. Jack Wilson , 15. Ben Smith (cc)

Replacements:

16. Liam Coltman , 17. Craig Millar , 18. Josh Hohneck , 19. Dan Pryor , 20. Elliot Dixon , 21. Josh Renton , 22. Hayden Parker , 23. Jason Emery

 

[0tago]

Fantastic defensive effort this week. I'm pleased with this result, they weren't the prettiest of tries, but it's good to pick up 5 points and not concede any tries, progress and with the Force in Dunners next weekend it's a satisfying result. Our AB's didn't shine this game, but it allowed for others to come through, Thompson had another good game and is proving a great replacement for Bucky.

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Disappointing from a Rebels perspective, I went to game with no expectation of beating the reigning champions but the Highlanders never looked like beating the Rebels despite the score. They simply defended really well and capitalised on the Rebels mistakes.
3 things that annoyed me were the Rebels don't have enough pace in the back 3, we should have scored when Placid was tackled and tried to offload to Shipperley. Placid was weak under the high ball, 1 mistake led to an easy Highlanders try,
and twice towards the end, we got a penalty, gained some yards with the kick, wont the lineout and Ben Meehan box kicks!! straight to Ben Smith, you don't have to be a genius to know not the give Ben Smith the ball with space, not once but twice.

 

[austingtir]

^^ I actually agree with you on this. I thought the Rebels would of won this comfortably had they been more clinical which they werent even close to achieving. The amount of dropped passes by them with the HL on the ropes was almost unbelievable.


The Rebels were quite frankly terrible at times so im not going to sit here and wax lyrical about this win.

Oh and yeah the Rebels fullback if you look in the dictionary under shocker there'll be a picture of his mug in there! We've probably got 300 fullbacks over here that could put in a better performance than that.

 

[0tago]

^^ I actually agree with you on this. I thought the Rebels would of won this comfortably had they been more clinical which they werent even close to achieving. The amount of dropped passes by them with the HL on the ropes was almost unbelievable.


The Rebels were quite frankly terrible at times so im not going to sit here and wax lyrical about this win.

We come home from Aussie with 9pts from 2 difficult fixtures, I will wax lyrical about that, bask in the current form the Landers have been in the past few seasons, it's been a long time.

 

[Southern Stag]

This won't be a walk in the park for us, the Rebels have a really good hardworking loose forward trio, old boy Thompson, McMahon and Timani is really good at lock. We'll have to be very careful and I hope our defense is better this week. We should still win, but we really need to improve on our 2nd half defensive efforts.

Turns out it was a walk in the park, the Highlanders defence was way too good for the Rebels.

 

[0tago]

Turns out it was a walk in the park, the Highlanders defence was way too good for the Rebels.

It wasn't a walk in the park, did you watch the game?

 

[Southern Stag]

I watched the game, i might have exaggerated a little, but the Highlanders came away with a comfortable win.

 

[0tago]

I watched the game, i might have exaggerated a little, but the Highlanders came away with a comfortable win.

Score line flattered, we scored a couple of lucky tries and the Rebels butchered plenty of chances. I'm happy with the defense though, but it'd be nice to find a balance in both our attack and defensive game.

 

[Southern Stag]

Score line flattered, we scored a couple of lucky tries and the Rebels butchered plenty of chances. I'm happy with the defense though, but it'd be nice to find a balance in both our attack and defensive game.

Their defence was nearly faultless, and enjoyable to watch, as you say, a couple of the tries were a wee bit on the lucky side, if their attack was as good as their defence, then they would be nigh on unbeatable.
It is something they have to work on, and i'm sure their attacking prowess will only get better as the season goes on, well, i hope so anyway..

 

[Kiwiwomble]

I thought it was pretty comfortable, over the first 30mins 70% of the game was played in the Rebels half. The Rebels butchered a few good chances but thought we got out of our red zone pretty easily.