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How brutal honesty got the Rebels to the top of Australian conference

Will Genia in action for the Melbourne Rebels. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Turns out it wasn’t just the emotion of Quade Cooper and Will Genia facing their old team behind Melbourne’s Super Rugby victory over Queensland.

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The ex-Reds were key in the Rebels’ 32-13 victory at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, but it was fury at their performance against the Sharks in Durban which sparked the visitors’ display.

Rebels coach David Wessels said while there’s no shame in losing to the South African franchise away from home, the manner of the defeat had led to plenty of soul-searching.

“We had a pretty honest conversation on Monday, first as staff and then as players,” Wessels said.

“There’s a certain standard that we expect from each other and we didn’t deliver that in Durban last week.

“It was important that we reacted to that and did more of the things that we expect of each other.”

Rebels captain Angus Cottrell believed brutal honesty had played a pivotal role his team’s turnaround.

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The Rebels made 20 handling errors and were outplayed at scrum-time by the Sharks in the 28-14 loss.

On Saturday the Rebels were dominant throughout, their forward pack battering the Reds in the scrum and line-out, while they had almost two-thirds of possession.

“We reviewed pretty hard, just that intensity level. We weren’t bringing it against the Sharks, going away from our game, so on Monday it was pretty tough,” Cottrell said.

“We had a couple of good days in training and obviously it resulted in a good performance.”

The win lifted the Rebels to the top of the Australian conference after the Waratahs’ shock loss to the Sunwolves on Friday.

Wessels was delighted to be in such a position six games in to the campaign and with a fortnight in South Africa behind them.

“We’ve won two away Aussie derbies which is good and we’ve also got our longest, or heaviest, travel block behind us now,” Wessels said.

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“We need to consolidate now this week at home.”

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Nickers 16 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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