Heading in to Round 5 of Super Rugby Pacific, only the Brumbies and the Reds remain undefeated. They face off against each other this Friday in Canberra to see which team remains undefeated for the 2022 season. The matchup between Tom Banks and Jordan Petaia at fullback will be interesting ahead of Wallaby selection. Petaia played a great game there for the Reds in his first chance to run on with the 15 jersey. Both in attack and defence he imposed himself as a real contender for the Wallaby role there.
An injury ravaged Reds held out Fijian Drua at the weekend, ironically, it was a Fijian in Seru Uru that saved the Reds from an embarrassing result. Up four tries to nil with 15 minutes to go it looked like the Reds were heading for a bonus point victory until the visitors scored three unanswered tries in quick succession. With less than 10 minutes remaining on the clock the scores were locked at 28-all before Uru reached over from a maul to score a five-pointer taking the score to 33-28 to the Reds. That is not where the drama ended as Uru stole a lineout off the Fijians on the Queensland line at the fulltime mark to deny them drawing level or even winning.
Coach Brad Thorn said, “For our team, a game like that can be a challenge because there’s space and there’s opportunities but you’ve almost got to rein it in a little bit.
“Keep your patience, don’t overplay – that’s probably how I would assess that.”
Uru’s (pictured above) standout performance has made Thorn’s job a little bit harder this week with the expected return of captain Liam Wright in the position Uru was playing. It’s really a good headache to have knowing that the Reds have depth and that the guys will really put in for each other when their chance comes. That depth will be really tested on Friday when they come up against the Brumbies that are also in red hot form.
Brisbane Rugby.com 