They’re both yet to register a victory after two rounds but the Waratahs and Rebels are heading into their clash in Melbourne on Friday at differing stages of desperation.
The showdown will see one of the two winless teams finally get off the mark for the 2020 season, after NSW lost to the Crusaders and the Blues in the first two weeks, and the Rebels fell to the Sunwolves and the Brumbies.
But where NSW halfback Jake Gordon admitted a win at AAMI Park would help the last-placed Waratahs shed some creeping “anxiety”, Rebels coach Dave Wessels is, by contrast, feeling far happier with his team’s trajectory.
The Rebels were very poor in losing to the Sunwolves in Fukuoka and Wessels was staring down the barrel of a long season when they again started badly in Canberra, falling to a 24-point deficit in the first half.
But Wessels ended up walking away with confidence courtesy of a Rebels’ fightback, which saw the Melburnians finish up by denying the Brumbies a bonus point in a 10-point defeat.
"The fact we finished the stronger team and were still playing with some tempo at the end of the game, that’s given us a lot of confidence,” Wessels said post-game.
"We are obviously disappointed to lose but we just had a really poor start and it was hard to fight our way back from that, but we never stopped trying and we took a bonus point away from them at the back end of the game, which I think at the end of the season is going to matter.
"Little things like that, we’ll take heart from those things.”
Wessels said he took responsibility for leaving his senior players “undercooked” for the Sunwolves game, after only playing them for 40 minutes in the trials.
"Certainly today (last Friday) is much closer to the type of rugby we know we are capable of, so I feel pretty good about the season going forward but we have some work to do,” Wessels said.
"In the past we have got excited about a great start to the season and fallen away but I think today we played better than we did last week, and we need to keep building and take another step up in our first home game next week.”
The Rebels will mark the tenth anniversary of their first game in Super Rugby, which was also against NSW. They’ll hope to avoid a repeat of that night, during which the Waratahs cruised to a 43-0 victory.
Wessels will also be sweating on the health of Matt Toomua and Reece Hodge, who both left the field with headknocks and left Billy Meakes playing at no.10.
The Waratahs, meanwhile, are keen to get some points on the board after getting outclassed by two Kiwi rivals over the opening two weekends.
Gordon said the chance to get a win over a conference rival would be an opportunity to build some confidence, and get a foothold on the Australian conference ladder.
"We have addressed that local derbies at the moment are a big one for us,” Gordon said.
"If we win our conference, it propels us into finals, so I think Melbourne are in the same position as we are at the moment, with two losses. For us it is a huge game, going down to Melbourne, and it would probably ease the anxiety a little bit, coming away with a win would be really good for us."
Gordon said the Waratahs lacked polish in their two defeats, but were encouraged by the fact they were again making inroads against the Blues.
"The same as the Crusaders game, we had a lot of opportunities once again and probably that last pass didn’t stick,” Gordon said.
"We probably didn’t stick to the gameplan either,
"I thought once we entered that 22 metre zone, I thought we were really good. That try we scored in the second half with Mark (Nawaqanitawase), that was 12 phases as well.
"We fell into a trap a little bit of the offloads, getting our head through the line and looking for that miracle pass whereas we probably should have recycled the ball and tried to go again the next phase.
"There are promising signs. I know we said it last week. We are creating stuff but we need to better at finishing at the moment.”
Nawaqanitawase left the field after injuring his back while scoring a try, but officials do not believe the complaint will prevent the teenage winger from playing against the Rebels.
