Of course the aim of this game – sports journalism – is to spot the theme early. What’s happening? What’s the pattern? Who’s hot? Who’s not? Who’s rot?
I defy anyone to have picked it after the first half of the Waratahs vs Reds match at the Sydney Football Stadium on Friday night. The whole thing was a mish-mash of bash, biff, barge and bungles, back and forth, backs and forwards, interspersed with occasional busts of seriously clever play.
On the one hand, Tahs like Joseph Aukuso Suaalii, Harry Potter and most particularly Max Jorgensen showed through for their sheer class, constantly threatening the Queensland line, with no-look passes and jinks that left the defence in tatters.
Max Jorgensen scores his second try.Credit: Getty Images
On the other hand, when Queensland put the ball up twenty minutes in, not a single Waratah shouted what we were all taught in the U/12s, on pain of doing twenty push-ups: shout “MINE!” The ball dropped in a postcode all its own, and the invaders from the north recovered it easily.
All that, and despite three tries by the Tahs in the first forty minutes – including an absolute pearler by Jorgensen waltzing through the Queensland defence in a manner to make Matilda herself proud – the Reds refused to bow to their betters, and scored two great tries of their own, and go to the break only 17-12 down.
Surely, however, the second half would deliver a theme?
Not in the first 25 minutes, it didn’t. It’s not that nothing happened. Just nothing memorable happened. The only thing it proved was that both Queensland’s Fraser McReight and NSW’s Charlie Gamble are both worth three men a piece.
At last, with fourteen minutes to go, the game came to life.
With the Waratahs scoring to the right of the posts after clever lead-up work by Gamble, the goodies were up 24-12 and Queensland had to go hard or go home.
