A New Name For The Blog?

Went out to the hallowed turf of Ballymore last night to watch E Jones' first outing as coach of the mighty Queensland Reds. They played Fiji in the rain, and whilst that made conditions fairly difficult for the players it was still a pretty good performance.

The first thing I noticed was the STUNNING performance of Caleb Brown- once again he grabbed multiple tries and every time he touched the ball he looked dangerous- in the mold of the great Cullen. He is a real up and comer- watch for him to be in the worlds cup squad this time next year. He could eventually give Rodzilla a run for his money in being the name of this blog.

The Reds played as you would expect an Eddie Jones coached team to perform- big concentration on holding onto the ball and then swinging it wide after a large number of phases. Now of course I'm not the biggest supporter of the Jones way of playing the game- but this young side does need to learn to hold onto the ball (see the crusaders game last year).

Hynes had a run at five eigth- and he was all right - but when Andrew Brown got on the pitch he was really good- I love him as an inside centre for the Super 14- on that note I'm not at all convinced about Loyd Johannson- he can't catch, can't pass- but he can run- would possibly be good as a late replacement to try and make something happen. But of course when you consider that Ryan Nicholoas and Schcoffski (no idea) are still to arrive I can't see where there could be room for him. (although I hear that Berrick is back to kicking practice all ready- so we may not have a need for schcoffski anyways...)

The other good part of the night was Ed Odonagahue - with Cam Tralor in the second row with him and Mitch Chapman at number 6 they were quite good. When you add the mighty Hugh Mcmenimen to that mix as well as Will Caldwell all of a sudden we have some depth. Same with the front row- Herman Hunt had an impressive run, so there is starting to get some depth in behind our Wallaby superstars.

So really all of a sudden there is a strong shadow 15 behind the top 15 giving QLD some good depth- the problem still exists if we get two injuries in the same position (e.g. half back or five eigth) then were stuffed.