Reds boss Thorn addresses dodgy surface
REACTION: Struggling Queensland Reds face an early season must-win Super Rugby game.
The Reds are 0-3 and bottom of the Australian conference after their 28-17 loss to the NSW Waratahs on Saturday and are just one of two teams yet to register a win.
They desperately need to kickstart their season next Saturday when they play the Sunwolves, who are the team immediately above them in the conference.
“With the work, we did pre-season, it felt like there’s been growth in the group, tonight was really disappointing,” Reds coach Brad Thorn said.
“[But] you do have those games.”
The major talking point at the SCG was the state of the surface with the ground staff forced onto the ground for repairs after each scrum, with the surface churned up.
Thorn very resilient to use the dodgy surface as an excuse, however, he did express his disappointment and stated that it neutralised the Reds’ biggest weapon.
“It just shut it down didn’t it?” Thorn said post-match.
“It’s a professional sport. Rugby grounds, there is a lot of running around but with the mauling and the scrummaging, the ground is pretty important. That was disappointing.
“It just didn’t have any strength to it.”
Reds captain Samu Kerevi shared the coaches’ sentiment, stating that they were unable to utilise their most effective set-piece.
“Like Thorny said we have a pretty strong scrum and wanted to utilise it tonight but the surface didn’t help us,” Kerevi said.
“On top of that, it is not an excuse. Good surface or no good, whatever. That game was on us as a playing group. The coaches had a good game plan for us, we didn’t execute,”
Source: AAP & @rugbycomau
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