Time to spark up a bit of debate -
Even though reds still have a number of key players on the sideline I think tonights game will hail the beginning of their championship defence - If not their season is over.
40K+ crowd @ Suncorp / Good kicker back / desperate & the big one.... Kiwi turned aussie ref Steve Walsh... hahaha
It's hard to argue the Stormers are at a low with de Villiers and Bekker out of action. But they have been a surprising team all year, winning games with narrow margins, when a loss seemed imminent. They may surprise us again. Or the Reds may surprise us by showing some pride for a change.
i am surprised to see sam lane get the nod ahead of ben lucas. before his injury lucas was looking very sharp with his all round game and he really impressed me big time, strking contrast to sam lane who was found left wanting a number of times by the brumbies backs.
despite having harrison back, the best i can see this reds team doing is getting a bonus point for losing by 7 or less. harris, kitshoff and liebenberg should overcome daly, hanson and slipper, it wont be easy, but they will eventually overpower and out do them.
horwil and simmons have the advantage over ezebeth and de kock, as the reds duo are more intuned with one another after their reds and wallabies campaign.
stormers loose trio of elsdtat, kilosi and vermeulen ahve been in resonable form, everyone of them stepping up at some point or rather conributing to their 2nd on the log placings, while samo, robinson and higgingbotham have been shades of their 2011 form, higgs has been playing well in his last two games though.
the backline is where the stormers comes up trumps every single time, the only non regular in their start studded backline is van de heever and hes a 60 game plus veteran of sp rugby with some nice footwork to go with his speed.
the one thing that the reds have in their favour is that the stormers have been unwilling to unleash their lethal backline, opting for the more conservative approach of playing for territory and captalising on opponents mistakes, so if the reds front up like they did against the brumbies, then they are in with a chance, but their performance needs to go up at least 2 levels for them to win.
wasnt digby meant to be back this round???
Redsman dont count those chickens. The Stormers have some problems its true and this is the third week on tour. However there is enough there to win this one provided Walsh doen't shaft us. That is my biggest worry - second would be further injuries.
I guess the Reds resurgence was a mirage.
