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Rebels snap up Fijian replacement for Will Genia

Fiji's Frank Lomani charges upfield for the Barbarians in a match versus Argentina at Twickenham (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Melbourne Rebels posted a positive start to their 2019 Super Rugby season, which included two wins in the opening four weeks against the Brumbies, who take on the Jaguares in the first of the competition’s semi-finals.

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That early momentum faded, though, as the Rebels ended up finishing second in the Australian conference with a record of just seven wins in their 16 games, a total that saw them manage to finish only 11th on the overall log and comfortably out of play-off contention.

There were moments of magic between Will Genia and Quade Cooper in the half-backs, as the tournament-winning combination from the Reds in 2011 reunited in Melbourne. But with Genia now reported to be heading to Japan after the World Cup, head coach David Wessels has moved to bolster his options at scrum-half.

Fijian international Frank Lomani, who was previously part of the Rebels squad in 2018, has agreed to a two-year deal with the franchise where he will compete with former Australian under-20 Harrison Goddard.

“Signing with the Melbourne Rebels is a dream come true for me,” said Lomani. “I’m looking forward to developing my game in a world-class environment and picking up as much as I can from my new team-mates.”

Michael Ruru, the only other scrum-half currently on the Rebels roster, is off to Bayonne, who recently secured their promotion back to the Top 14.

Lomani, 23, has been one of the standout performers for the Fijian Drua side since their inclusion in Australia’s National Rugby Championship, as well as featuring for the Barbarians in their game against Argentina at Twickenham last year. Since making his debut for Fiji against Samoa in 2017, Lomani has gone on to win eight caps.

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The young No9 is one of four scrum-halves included in Fiji’s 42-man squad for the upcoming Pacific Nations Cup and, barring injury or a drop in form, is likely to be one of the 31-man contingent that heads to Japan later this year.

Australian and New Zealand Super Rugby franchises have often been reluctant to bring in capped players from the Pacific Island nations. However, with the player exoduses to Europe and Japan rising to new levels thanks to the Rugby World Cup, they cannot afford to turn down players as talented as Lomani.

Melbourne Rebels general manager Nick Ryan explained: “Frank is a guy we’ve had our eye on for a while now, particularly after the way he dominated the NRC last season.

“Spending so much time in the national squad has certainly fast-tracked his development. There’s no doubt he will emerge as one of the bright stars at this year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.”

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WATCH: Ronan O’Gara speaks to the media ahead of the Crusaders’ Super Rugby semi-final against the Hurricanes

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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?

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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.

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