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The 20-year-old Super Rugby rookie following in the footsteps of Brumbies icon Christian Lealiifano

(Photo by Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

Brumbies rookie flyhalf Noah Lolesio revealed his predecessor Christian Lealiifano has been helping guide his transition into the high-pressure playmaking role.

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Lolesio steered the Brumbies to a season-opening victory against the Queensland Reds in his Super Rugby debut on Friday night.

Lealiifano, now plying his trade in Japan, has been in constant contact with Lolesio since his first Brumbies start in a trial against the Melbourne Rebels 10 days ago.

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The 20-year-old wants to follow the blueprint of Lealiifano who spent 12 seasons with the Brumbies and earned 26 Wallabies caps, but also carve his own path.

“He’s been giving me advice telling me to stay calm and that, he’s been real good to me and wished me luck this morning,” Lolesio told reporters after the game.

“No offence to Christian, he’s been an awesome ambassador for this club … he’s is a massive loss and massive shoes to fill but I just want to do me and see how we go.

“I’m just playing footy and loving it, wouldn’t want to be doing anything else so I’m really grateful for it.”

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Brumbies coach Dan McKellar was pleased with a “really good” debut from Lolesio and said his No. 10 would only improve.

“Noah is a pretty calm and composed kid and nothing rattles him or worries him too much,” McKellar said.

“He’s got the ability to just park things quickly which is a good trait to have as a 10 because you’re going to make mistakes … it’s how you respond and how you react to it.

“He did some really good things out there tonight and he’ll just continue to learn and grow and get better and better as a footballer and someone who has to direct us around the park.”

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Brumbies skipper Allan Alaalatoa backed Lolesio to lead the club long term.

“I loved how calm he was tonight,” Alaalatoa said.

“He looked like someone who has played 50 Super games and he’s only going to grow from here.”

– 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?

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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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