The Taylors Wines Top 5 is where we keep you up to date with all of the best player stories being told in the media, brought to you by our good friends at Taylors Wines (and accompanied by a handy wine tip every edition).
Round Four of Super Rugby sees the NSW Waratahs with the bye, the Brumbies heading across the ditch to face the Chiefs (5:05pm Saturday), the Melbourne Rebels playing in a brand new location as they host the Sharks in Ballarat (2:45pm Saturday), and the Queensland Reds at home for the first time this season against the Sunwolves (7:15pm Saturday). Click here for all of the team news.
The 2020 Buildcorp Super W season kicked off last weekend, with the NSW Waratahs Women defeating the Melbourne Rebels Women 33-3, and the Brumbies Women beating Rugby WA 29-10. This week, Queensland Reds Women venture west to Perth for their first match (Saturday, 7:00pm), while the Melbourne Rebels host the Brumbies in Ballarat (Saturday 12:15pm). Get all of your team news here.
As always, FOX Sports and KAYO Sports have all the action LIVE and exclusive; now, without further ado, here’s what has been making news.
1. Matt Gibbon's inspirational journey
Matt Gibbon's rise in 2019, from Melbourne Rebels training squad member to regular starter and even a stint in Wallaby camp, was one of the stories of the season.
Matt, brother of former Queensland Reds and Australian Men's Rugby Sevens player Alex, overcame the odds to have a major impact in Melbourne, but as he explained this week to the Herald Sun's Russell Gould (after re-signing with the Rebels), it's not the first time he's had to thrive in challenging circumstances.
Gibbon grew up in Alstonville, on the northern coast of NSW, and lived, until he was 10, with his parents who both have mental disabilities. Chrissy Pollock, his mum, and Chris Gibbon, his dad, met and fell in love at the House with No Steps, a government-run farmhouse set up for people with disabilities to work and socialise.
Chrissy was born with cerebral palsy and has the mental and emotional capacity of a 10-year-old. Chris was in a car accident as a child and received severe brain damage. They married and wanted to have kids but doctors advised against it. Their own parents, however, wanted to give them an opportunity to live as normal a life as possible and signed guarantees to support the parents and to look after any children should it be required.
Gibbon said his mother was “amazing, always positive and very loving”, but looking after two kids was beyond his parents.
“They thought they could be responsible enough, but they just couldn’t,” Gibbon said.
He said his childhood was an unregulated environment, which was overrun with bad people — “bikies and drug addicts” — who took advantage of his parents.
“There were some pretty dark times, not great people hanging around the house. It wasn’t a great environment for kids,” Gibbon said. “My parents were aware of every day things, but they just didn’t understand them properly. When you are young, you can talk to them. But when you are older, you realise the difference, and how significant it was. My grandparents lived on a farm nearby, too, but they couldn’t be there all the time.
“When I was about 10, my grandfather, mum’s dad, came and got us and took us to the farm to live,” Gibbon said. “My dad was getting pretty bad, he was up to a few things, so we left him.”
Grandad Dave Pollock was a no-nonsense country bloke. He ran a farm with cattle and a “little bit of everything”. He had played rugby and had already steered both Matt and Alex to the sport. He also put them to work.
“I’d be up in the morning milking a cow or there’d be one loose on the road I’d have to go get it and then I’d go to school. It was much more stable,” Gibbon said. “My grandfather was my first rugby coach, too. He used to make us run at training, and one time we just said we wouldn’t run, and he said ‘OK’ and walked off to his car. He came back with a stock whip and cracked it a few times. You should have seen us run.”
Matt and Alex both received Rugby scholarships to head to Brisbane and be educated at St Josephs Nudgee College in Queensland, a rugby factory, and both embraced the environment.
“It’s the people you are with, the people you are around. I could get away with so much when I was a kid, and I did,” Gibbon said. “We had to get out of that environment and that’s what rugby did, it brought us out of that darkness. Instead of hanging around people who weren’t great, we were around good people doing good things, and when you do that it’s not hard to change.
“More than rugby, they teach you how to be a good human being.”
It’s a character trait anyone who knows Gibbon recognises in him — and one he gets from his mum, who remains a solid rock for the 25-year-old.
“She is an amazing woman, always happy, always supportive and rings or messages me every day. She’s very loving,” Gibbon said.
Click here to read the full story.
2. Super Crazy Mum ready to go
Queensland Reds prop Hilisha Samoa is unsure whether the tag “rugby supermum” fits her stirring comeback after the birth of her fifth child.
“Maybe, ‘Super Crazy Mum’ suits better,” the popular prop told the Courier Mail's Jim Tucker.
Samoa, 34, played her first match in more than two years last Sunday with her energetic showing off the bench in a trial against Fiji. To say life is a juggle is a major understatement. She recently arrived at Ballymore training to find a baby’s milk bottle had been put in her kit bag beside her boots and mouthguard. Kids Lennox, 13, Evander, 8, Apollo, 3, Monica, 1, and newborn Licia are part of the reason their proud mum has strapped on the footy boots again.
“I want to stay active and show my kids they can do anything if they put their minds to it,” Samoa said.
“The kids still get all their food, drinkand attention but now it’s all about being organised so my gear bag is ready and all the school lunches, uniforms and dinners are too. No day is ever the same. When I first went back to training I had two kids hanging off my legs as I walked out the door but they’ve now got the hang of it.”
Samoa was a standout for the Wallaroos at the 2017 World Cup in Ireland but motherhood has been her top priority since. Watching the Reds twice reach the final as Super W grows has been a spur to return for Saturday’s opener against Western Australia in Perth.
“It’s been great watching women’s rugby grow and when the opportunity for a trial came up I thought, ‘why not see how the body goes?’,” Samoa said.
Click here to read the full story.
3. Harry's just mad about Higgers
When Queensland Reds Number Eight Harry Wilson realised he was unlikely to make his Reds debut last year, he looked to a 100-game veteran to learn as much as he could to be ready to unleash when his chance came.
Scott Higginbotham has been an outstanding servant of Queensland rugby, playing more than 100 games and captaining his state.
But one of his greatest contributions may have been in mentoring Wilson during his final season at Ballymore last year. A member of the Junior Wallabies' squad last year, Wilson's departure for the World Rugby U20 championships in Argentina partway through the Super Rugby season denied him the chance of making a Super Rugby debut, but it had a silver lining.
"That was one of the good things last year, when I knew I wasn't versing Higgers for a spot, my goal was just to learn from him," Wilson told Rugby.com.au's Emma Greenwood.
"Everything I do I just want to attack it and just do it as hard as you can. I love the way Higgers just played eyes-up footy in attack and defence. It's definitely something to emulate. When I play rugby I don't like playing just boring stuff and that's probably why I really liked learning from Higgers and just watching in general."
Reds Head Coach Brad Thorn and Scrum Coach Cameron Lillicrap have been nurturing the young Queensland pack for several years and with the basics now under their belts, want them to be an aggressive force in the competition.
"That's what they've been very big on this year, we're not just going to hit straight up, we're going to use our hands and not be a boring team, be a very attacking team," Wilson said. ""I know that's one of my strengths, so that's even more motivation to get out there and try and do it on the big stage."
Wilson has achieved that in the opening three rounds, pushing his way to sixth place on the Super Rugby stats ladder for carries, one behind teammate James O'Connor, with Wallabies no.8 Isi Naisarani leading the competition. He is also in equal-fifth place for offloads, with Reds teammates Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and O'Connor, delivering on the potential many saw in him.
Wilson is aware of the buzz but determined to stay grounded.
"There's really no point in me listening to it because it really only matters what I do on the training park and then in games," he said. "Obviously any positive thing is nice to hear but it doesn't really matter unless I perform."
Click here to read the full story.
4. Brumbies happy to score tries any which way
The ACT Brumbies have brushed off criticism about their use of the rolling maul, adamant they'll stick with their game plan despite external pressure to change. The Brumbies scored three maul tries last week, rumbling through the Otago Highlanders on a wet and slippery night only to fall painfully short when the visitors scored an injury-time try.
One aspect the Brumbies have worked on over the past two seasons is finding a better balance between turning to the maul and unlocking their back-line weapons. Just four of their 13 tries in three games have come from the result of a maul and lock Caderyn Neville says they won't be convinced to move away from what works.
"There's a lot of opinions out there ... however we can score points is how we'll get them," Neville told the Canberra Times' Chris Dutton. "The most important voices are from within the group. In the age of social media, there's a lot more critics.
"It doesn't feel unattractive when the referee is putting his hand up and blowing the whistle for five points and the crowd is cheering. Especially as forwards, it's a beautiful sight for us."
The Brumbies are averaging five mauls per game this season, making them equal fifth in the competition after three rounds. According to the Fox Sports Lab, they average the third highest amount of metres gained and have used the maul after 15 of their 41 lineouts.
"Whatever can get us over the line," said Rob Valetini. "We spend hours on it during the week, to see it come off [is great].
"For us, when we muscle up against a big forward pack and we're dominant, that gets us up if we see their heads down at the try line. Busting them up gives us confidence. If we can get another three tries from it this weekend, then why not? If our game involves the maul, then it's our go to."
Click here to read the full story.
5. Horan excited by Reds backline
They may be looking for their first win of the season, but the Queensland Reds have been right in all three tough matches that they've played on the road in 2020 and Fox Sports commentator and Reds legend Tim Horan has seen plenty to be excited by.
“When you look at the way James O’Connor played at fly half, he was really impressive,” Horan told Christy Doran and the Fox Sports Rugby podcast.
“That’s two weeks in a row now. Tate McDermott, we know what he’s like. I thought he might have been taken on the Rugby World Cup trip last year but they left him back in Australia. Gee, I tell you what, he’s a talent and if we want to play an attacking sort of game, mindset, those sort of players are the ones you’re looking for.
“I watched him (Hunter Paisami) last year in club rugby in Brisbane, as a 20-year-old playing for the Wests club in Brisbane. I watched three or four of his games and he’s strong running. The way that he plays, he’s got good vision as well and there’s not a lot of players that can actually be good hole runners.
“That allows a fly-half like James O’Connor or Tate McDermott — when you have hole runners you can actually just put the ball in front and run onto it.
“So a good player, a bit to go yet, he’s still only young but the way the Queensland Reds can play now — with Samu Kerevi not there — it’s going to force them to have more of an expansive game plan.
“I think what Brad Thorn brings is that hard edge, hard culture but what Jim McKay brings as the assistant coach, attack coach, is you saw a couple of plays against the Jaguares at the weekend, that set-piece plays is the best way to attack.
“When you’ve got one-on-one opportunities – that’s something that the Reds, hopefully, have an opportunity to move the ball a bit wider this year.”
Click here to read the full story
And now, for an exclusive tip from our friends at Taylors Wines, and this week we’re teaching you about Chardonnay...
Chardonnay is the most popular and most planted white grape variety in the wine world and for good reason!
It grows well in the vineyard, it crops well, maintains its character in a variety of climates and is relatively easy to make into good wine. Chardonnay excels most in cooler climates...
