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James O'Connor facing sideline stint with ankle injury following Sharks defeat

James O'Connor. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Queensland Reds playmaker James O’Connor is facing an injury lay-off after rolling his ankle in a 10-point loss to the Sharks on Saturday that dented their Super Rugby finals chances.

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The hosts were run down 33-23 by a slick Durban outfit that will return to South Africa with a 3-1 record on their tour of Australia and New Zealand.

It left the Reds 1-4 ahead of their trip to face the defending champion Crusaders, last weekend’s historic 64-5 defeat of the Sunwolves a distant memory.

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Thorn said O’Connor, replaced by Isaac Lucas after 50 minutes, may have sprained his ankle but was hopefully it was only a minor concern.

Wins this weekend against foreign sides to the NSW Waratahs (five points) and Melbourne Rebels (eight) also hurt the Reds (seven), who missed a chance to make ground on the conference-leading Brumbies (13).

Thorn had hoped his side could match the highly-fancied South Africans and they did in the first 40 minutes, but just weren’t able to show it on the scoreboard.

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His men had all the ball and earned nine penalties that put them in prime position to strike.

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But, four times from line-outs and another from their usually dominant scrum, they coughed up possession.

“At Super Rugby level you can’t waste those sort of chances,” Thorn said.

“They executed when they needed to do and we didn’t.”

Tries to O’Connor and Taniela Tupou in the first and second half were also overturned and the Sharks made them pay behind Curwin Bosch’s supreme boot and Lukhanyo Am’s intercept try.

Conversely Jock Campbell struggled off the tee, missing two conversions and spraying several field kicks, while O’Connor was also ineffective by foot.

The Reds’ scrum was slowly worn down by the Sharks too and Thorn knows they’ve got plenty of work today before Friday’s steep ask.

“The best team in comp for last three years, so from our end nothing to lose there,” he said of their next challenge.

“We’ll keep working … they’re a world-class side and we’ll be throwing our all into it looking for a win.”

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– AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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