Reds pledge: Stop the rot

By Jim Tucker
January 22, 2008

THE marketing dollars spent on Queensland's new "On The March" campaign could easily have been saved because the far blunter message that Reds fans needed to hear was coined free of charge.

"Stop the Rot" is a more accurate slogan, and the phrase tumbled from the lips of fresh-faced Reds coach Phil Mooney from the outset of the season launch at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

Those three words mean far more than all the swords, painted red army faces and medieval imagery that the Reds marketing department is draping over the seven home games in Super 14 this season.

Mooney led with a determined chin. Skipper John Roe and Berrick Barnes promised far better than the two wins of an awful, last-placed 2007. It can't get worse any more. The Reds' reputation will keep reading like a rock-bottom radio station - 92.3 - until that scoreline shocker from Pretoria last May is punted into history by a stream of victories.

"As a group we're determined to stop the rot of the past few years," Mooney said.

Barnes took his cue: "It's a clean slate. The key is for us to start the season strongly and that added bonus of having our best players on the park this year is big for us."

Those big guns, the fit-again figures of Chris Latham, Sam Cordingley, Rodney Blake, Greg Holmes and Hugh McMeniman, will all start in the trial against Auckland Blues at Ballymore on Thursday week.

On Saturday night, the first-up trial against New South Wales in Sydney will reward up-and-comers like lock Rob Simmons, long-striding back-row prospect Josh Afu, flanker A. J. Gilbert and half-back experiment Ben Lucas with starts under first-time captain Lloyd Johansson.

Fly-half Barnes is excited about translating all he learnt in his fine four-Test initiation at the Rugby World Cup to the Reds backline rather than predicting his future with Australia.

It is a sign of the youth in the Reds squad that Barnes, at 21, already feels that showing greater leadership must be a new facet of his game.

"I am working hard on it beyond the leadership you've got to have from my position anyway," he said.

Barnes's fine show-and-go dash to set up the key first try against Wales in Cardiff was the sort of attacking threat that will make him a target now opposition defences are more aware of him.

Reds skipper John Roe Monday elected to bypass the NSW game to give his reconstructed left shoulder a few extra days off before a comeback against the Blues.