Reds 18 v. Blues 27 (FT)

Was last week an aberration or has Ewen McKenzie truly turned the Brisbane-based franchise into giant killers?

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The Reds head coach believes he has a team of champions and has now challenged them to take their game to the next level – especially the mercurial halfback pairing of Will Genia and Quade Cooper.

Not only does he want them to “keep improving” their game, but also “perform consistently” every week.

“I’m more about players giving budgeting performances so I’d like to see consistency in Quade and all the other players,” McKenzie told reporters at Ballymore.

“You don’t really want to bottle Quade in.  He has got some outstanding attributes and creativity so you don’t want to box that in.  But at the same time, what we do want him to do is facilitate the other guys in the game and I think he is doing a good job.

“You can raise the bar as high as you want, but as long as it’s there week in and week out.  It’s no good having a brilliant game and not being seen the week after.”

McKenzie said Genia has an impressive ‘all-round game’ which he said was a product of the hard work he expects from all of his players.

“I’ve been involved with a lot of halfbacks but he is a very complete player at a young age,” he said.

“He searches for space, runs with the ball, tackles very well, can kick … it’s all there and there’s nothing there that you’re saying there’s a problem or a weakness.

“He works very hard on individual skills.  There’s no reason for that to be worse in the future and he will just keep honing and honing.  There is no reason for it to fail technically.”

The Blues are also on a high, having beaten the Highlanders in Dunedin.

Yet, Blues coach Pat Lam did not sound as convincing in the praise of his team as McKenzie did.

Lam described the trip to Brisbane as a “huge challenge”.

“They are red-hot at the moment and we saw what they did to the Crusaders,” Lam told the New Zealand media.

“But we have prepared well and the boys are up for it and they will need to be.”

It is his team’s set pieces that troubles the Blues coach most.

“We have had a long hard session for the forwards and we realised we made a lot of those mistakes ourselves and we have certainly worked hard on that and, hopefully, we will see an improvement this week,” Lam said.

Super 14 results:
2009: Reds won 31-24, Albany
2008: Blues won 35-22, Brisbane
2007: Blues won 38-13, Auckland
2006: Blues won 21-20, Brisbane

rugby365.com Prediction: This Reds team looks like a quality side – no longer a team with some quality individuals (even though they still have plenty of those), but rather a quality team. The Blues were not entirely convincing in the opening weeks and we have to go with a home win. The Reds by 10 to 15 points.

Teams:

Reds: 15 Peter Hynes, 14 Digby Ioane, 13 Morgan Turinui, 12 Anthony Faingaa, 11 Rod Davies, 10 Quade Cooper, 9 Will Genia (captain), 8 Scott Higginbotham, 7 Daniel Braid, 6 Jake Schatz, 5 Van Humphries, 4 Adam Byrnes, 3 Laurie Weeks, 2 Saia Faingaa, 1 Ben Daley.
Replacements: 16 Sean Hardman, 17 Greg Holmes, 18 Rob Simmons, 19 Leroy Houston, 20 Richard Kingi, 21 Tim Walsh, 22 Will Chambers.

Blues: 15 Paul Williams, 14 Joe Rokocoko, 13 Rene Ranger, 12 Benson Stanley, 11 Rudi Wulf, 10 Stephen Brett, 9 Alby Mathewson, 8 Peter Saili, 7 Serge Lilo, 6 Jerome Kaino, 5 Anthony Boric, 4 Kurtis Haiu, 3 Charlie Faumuina, 2 Keven Mealamu (captain), 1 John Afoa.
Replacements: 16 Tom McCartney, 17 Tony Woodcock, 18 Filo Paulo, 19 Viliami Ma’afu, 20 Chris Smylie, 21 Daniel Kirkpatrick, 22 Lachie Munro.

Referee: Steve Walsh (Australia)
Assistant referees: Paul Marks (Australia), Stephen Hill (Australia)
TMO: Steve Leszczynski (Australia)