Reds:
"Yeah you've got to try and keep things, the Waratahs game is it the end of the world, does everybody suck? You have that game where the defence was an incredible effort, so we're now all world beaters, you've got to keep the sanity. There's that saying that you're never as good as what you think you are or as bad as you think you are. Just trying to keep some groundness around where things are going with both those weeks. I feel good about what they did the other night. They got some balance with a couple of days to recover, but then you've got to dump that and it's all about fizzing on Friday. The job's there again and it's all in front of the lads.
Taniela:
He's a young, he's come here since he was 18 or 19 and he's been working on his craft. For me, I enjoyed my scrummaging, I loved it, so there's a focus there and Cameorn Lillicrap here and you've seen what he's done here. The club players. Dane Zander was playing reserve grade for Norths last year and went the Wallabies tight-head, went 80 minutes iwth him down at the Brumbies and there's a whole heap of those guys. Taniela, he's 24 now, he's been to a World Cup, 50 plus caps, there's some maturity coming in. He's wanted to lead and there's just a calmness and a prsence about him which I've seen in my career just around guys. You look at Taniela and teams will go, we've got a real scrum focus here, eight men working hard for each other, we put time into it. The pack weight is easily plus 900 kilo pack weight. The two locks are 122 kilo each, then you've got a tight-head lock who is a 136-37 kilo, benches 200, squats some reicilous number, so you can talk about him but it's a pretty easy equation. One plus one equals two, he is a big powerful tighthead and he's learned to love scrumming and he's in a pack that likes scrumming. That's what it is. I think you'd be surprised if he wasn't (dominaating). I just think as the years go by he's just going to grow in stature more and more and it's cool that he's here in Australia. BEcause i'll tell you what, guys like Taniela thye're loved in France, they're loved in Europe. If there's one pack dominating another, that's all that matters.
Finals reds, been a while?
I don't think the pressure, just the potential to do that is exciting. Just go along with this next job in front of us which is the Force, a highly motivated side, but gee if you get some results then how good would it be to have some finals in Brisbane. It's been a while, hasn't it?! You've seen the last two weeks, the Waratahs game, you saw the Brumbies and then the Waratahs and then we had the Rebels so this team has learned that you've got to make sure that you're on each week. The focus has to be on the task at hand. If we get this job done then we can look past that.
Defence?
It hurt. It hurt as much as any game. At that time, to me, that was more important than the World Cup as crazy as it sounds that year because of what was going on in Christchruch. They talked about the two cities and the floods. I was here, I used to always come back for six weeks over the summer, I was here for the floods and it was traumatic and there were lives lost, the equathquakes, that was something different. Everyone saw on the news that there's been an earthquake and then you get on with you life. 8000 aftershocks, 5 on the richter scale, that was a tough time for Christchurch. We had no games, we travlled across. That meant a lot at the time. Then on the other side, seeing 52000 fans at Suncorp and an exciting team that played good footy and just how good that was for rugby. It had been lean times since the early 2000s.
Defence?
We've been focused on improving our stats. The full 80 minutes. Our game's structures, our skills, we're a work-in process and we really want to be there at a pointy end.
Defence?
Every time I won a title we were usually top, the lowest numbers defensively, pretty much every time any time i've been at a team that's done well. We focused it a lot at the Broncos, we focused a lot on it at the Crusaders, at the All Blacks. If you look at the Jaguares last year, the Jaguares and Crusaders were one and two. It's just so important. What it says a lot is about your attitude, it says a lot about your mindset as a team, it says a lot about your connection, your spirit and bond as a team because every one loves to attack, everyone loves to have a run wiht thefooty, but the defence, it's not as glamorous, you put your body on the line, it's not always the big hit, it's just working on the inside hard, talking to your mate, so yeah if you get that side of the game right it certainly bodes well for your team.
