Melbourne Rebels Skipper Carter Gordon admits they failed to match the energy and speed of the Fijian Drua in their 38-28 loss in Round 6 of the Super Rugby Pacific on Saturday.
“The Fijians started the game well but we did not match them in terms of energy, physicality and they got off to a hot start. It was pretty hard to run them down on the front foot.”
“Our contact area and breakdown, we got a little loose there, some lines were set to shift as well. We’ve got to fix up what went wrong on Saturday for the Blues match.”
Carter said while the Rebels are disappointed with the loss, they have seen a much-improved performance from the home side this season.
“The crowd was definitely electric out there and whenever the Fijian Drua had some good moments of play, the crowd got up and we spoke about blocking that out. It’s hard when the crowd is loud but it was a great atmosphere.”
“It’s just disappointing that we didn’t start well. We definitely did not underestimate them and knew they would be very hard to beat here. They are a great side and we were aware of their threats and just did not execute the game plan.”
“From last year, Drua has improved a lot and we know what we are facing. We knew that playing in Fiji would be pretty hard for us.”
Head coach Kevin Foote also said it was quite late for them to fight back in the match.
“We didn’t start very well from the Rebel’s perspective and the Drua got their energy up. It was a tough first 40 minutes and we had opportunities that we don’t capitalise. They stayed in the fight and scored some good points.”
“Drua got off to a good start, probably their energy got in and we wanted to get away from the crowd noise but we tried to come and fight back and again we conceded some points.”
