With their infamous pre-season goal of a top-four finish out of reach but a slow-starting campaign finally starting to warm up, the Waratahs have set their sights on a new path to success in Super Rugby in 2023.
“The goal from now is to arrive at the finals fit and in form, and the way the finals are set up, if you get to the finals and win three games, you can win the comp,” NSW back-rower Will Harris said.
Setting aside the quality of finals opposition for a moment, the problem for the Waratahs in that equation is winning three consecutive games.
The Tahs haven’t won three in a row since the 2018 season, when they claimed wins over the Reds, Rebels and Sunwolves a few weeks before bowing out to the Lions in a semi-final in Johannesburg.
In the eight seasons since Michael Cheika departed in 2015, the Waratahs have only won three or more games in a row on four occasions.
Seventy-one Super Rugby matches on from their last three-peat, however, the Waratahs have the chance to break the drought on Saturday night and, along with valuable ladder points, overcome a pyschological barrier that could stand in the way of any run through the finals.
Lalakai Foketi scores for the Waratahs at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.Credit: Getty
After losing five from their opening six games, the Waratahs believe they’ve finally turned a corner, after registering back-to-back victories over the Highlanders and the Reds. A win over the Rebels at Allianz Stadium would be a third straight, and a fourth win from their last five games.
“[Beating Queensland] was a really promising result that has probably put a good bit of confidence in the group,” NSW prop Harry Johnson-Holmes said.
“We know on our day we can beat anyone, and just knowing the work we have put in the last month to right those wrongs has been the right way.
“I think of those early games, whilst we were [content] by losing by a couple of points and patting ourselves on the back, there were plenty of things that we saw that we could change to change the result of losing by five to winning by five.
Wallabies contender: Carter Gordon scores in the second half in Melbourne.Credit: Getty
“Earlier in the season, we probably looked at those games and the silver living we had with those losses was at some point we were in a position to win the game. That gave us confidence, and we obviously have a strong culture around here … combining that all together we knew water was going to find its level. We have the talent, we have the strategy and it is just tweaking the finer things and the execution.”
Standing in the way of a rare third consecutive victory, however, are a bogey team in the shape of the Rebels, who are playing great rugby and pushed the Brumbies last-start, and have been competitive against most Kiwi teams, too.
The Rebels continued their recent dominance over the Waratahs by beating them in Melbourne in round three; their fifth win over NSW in their last seven clashes.
“They beat us in round three and that was probably the lowest point in the season for us. It really stung in the change room afterwards. We were really hurting. This week is huge,” Harris said.
We had a fair bit of hype around us at the start of the season and had big expectations for ourselves, and people had big expectations for us. After that game we were 1-2 and we genuinely thought we were a good chance of winning that game. It just stung. We let ourselves down.
“We are just getting to where we expected ourselves to be, and its just taken a bit longer.”
The Tahs sit in sixth spot on the ladder, courtesy of an unusual two-tiered competition where the top five are unlikely to be caught. Eleven points adrift, NSW narrowly lead the next group, containing Fiji, Melbourne, the Highlanders and even the Force, who are all vying for the last three spots.
The Waratahs will be missing in-form loose forward Taleni Seu for the clash, out injured with a shoulder injury. With Ned Hanigan sidelined for a fourth week due to a cautious handling of a concussion suffered against the Force, Mebourne-raised Ola Tauelangi has been named for a possible Super Rugby debut off the bench.
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