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Kevin Foote: No risk in changing in-form Kellaway's position

Andrew Kellaway at media day for the Rebels. Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images for Bursty PR

Melbourne coach Kevin Foote feels there’s no downside to shifting Andrew Kellaway from fullback to wing despite him being the Rebels’ best player in the opening two Super Rugby Pacific rounds.

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Ahead of their clash with Moana Pasifika in Hamilton in the early Friday night game, Foote has opted to move the Wallabies ace and bring Jake Strachan into the starting line-up.

Kellaway has been on fire in the Rebels’ two games, which have yielded a win and a loss.

He leads the competition for metres gained with 243 and has formed a dangerous combination with five-eighth Carter Gordon.

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But Foote felt the proficiency of the 28-year-old on the wing meant it was a no-lose situation.

“I don’t see it as a risk – Kells is a really exceptional finisher,” Foote said.

“He’s always played well on the wing, both for the Wallabies and for the Rebels so Strachan comes in as second ball-player with a really good kicking game.

“There’s no risk; I think it will be good for our flow both in attack and defence.”

Melbourne have named hard-hitting Vaiolini Ekuasi at openside flanker in place of Brad Wilkin, who will undergo surgery on an hamstring injury on Friday.

It’s a blow for popular Wilkin, who led the Rebels last season in the absence of injured skipper Rob Leota, with the 28-year-old expected to be out for sidelined for up to 10 weeks.

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Foote said the team was in a “good space” as they look to stop Moana winning successive matches for the first time since joining the competition in 2022.

But he said Moana, under new coach, former All Blacks star Tana Umaga, would provide a stern challenge.

“Moana have been building for a long time … you can see their systems are well in place now and they’re playing more as a team than individuals.

“They’re a good challenge for us.”

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Meanwhile, Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh confirmed he would meet with the former board of the financially-embattled Rebels in a bid to head off legal action.

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The club entered voluntary administration last month with debts of over $20 million with their future in the Super competition uncertain.

“We’ve agreed to meet with the former Melbourne Rebels rugby union directors in a without prejudice conversation,” Waugh told reporters in Sydney.

The former board and RA are at a financial impasse with the Rebels directors looking to recover approximately $8 million they claim is owed to the club by the governing body.

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john 289 days ago

And this is what foreign coaches do in Australia. As soon as a Wallaby is looking good in one position, they will immediately move him to another position to unsettle him and ensure he can’t become world class.

Robbie Deans did it. Brad Thorn did it. Gibson did it. Rennie did it. Schmidt will do it. It is subtle but deliberate sabotage.

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JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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