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Reds promise to go wide
By Wayne Smith | January 25, 2008
IT's not saying much, but new Queensland coach Phil Mooney is promising the Reds will play more expansive rugby this season.
It's hardly possible they could do otherwise. Had the Reds' game last year under former coach Eddie Jones got any narrower, fans positioned behind the posts at Suncorp Stadium might well have complained it had disappeared before their very eyes.
At its best - or worst - the Reds forwards would take it in turns to pick-and-drive into unyielding defensive walls. It was a tactic designed to bring a smile only to the orthopaedic surgeons kept busy rebuilding the shoulders of the battered and blunted Queensland battering rams, and in the end, even those doctors were calling enough.
So there was a wry smile on Mooney's face when, just two days away from sending out the Reds for the first time, in a pre-Super 14 trial against New South Wales at Campbelltown, he acknowledged he intended playing "a little wider" than his predecessor.
"We've certainly worked on different patterns to those used last year," Mooney said. "Obviously, we're not going to put everything on display in a trial match but I think you'll find there is more intent to get the backs involved."
The promise makes sense not just from an aesthetic sense but from the point of view of enhancing the Reds' prospects, which cannot sink any lower after they completed their season with a record 92-3 drubbing from the Bulls in Pretoria to finish at the bottom of the Super 14 ladder.
A more expansive game should cut down on the Reds' injury toll, which was out of control last season. And even Queensland's most dubious critics concede that if it can keep its best team on the paddock, or close to it, it is a realistic chance of figuring in the race for the play-offs.
Reds recruit Chris Siale will start off the bench tomorrow, just like the Waratahs' star recruit, rival centre Timana Tahu, but indications are that unless Lloyd Johansson uncorks a powerful game, the Siale will be the Reds' starting inside centre this season.
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