I Hate The Reds

I'm not sure if there is an official medical term for what I have, but I think it’s best described as Battered Fan Syndrome. It's similar to the spousal one but involving a sports franchise (In this case the Queensland Reds).

Throughout my marriage to the Reds I've been repeatedly abused, tortured and beaten to within an inch of my supportive life only to find myself crawling back for more each season.  I’m sick of looking back at a season and saying "Well, at least we beat NSW".

NOTE: I can't even do that anymore.

Why does this happen? Why do I put myself through the agony of a Reds match each week?  Are the spoils of success that rich? Perhaps subconsciously I enjoy the pain of defeat. Is this punishment for supporting a Broncos team that has made 15 straight postseasons?  How much longer can this go on?

In hope of salvaging some hope for the coming weeks (just keep crawling back) I thought I'd break down the Reds season to this point.

We are four weeks in to the Super 14 now and the Reds sit second last with a 1-3 record.  They have scored a total of four tries in 320 minutes of rugby (two of which were against the run of play opposition mistakes/intercepts) had three yellow cards distributed, 113 moments where a player has miraculously appeared on the other side of the defensive line only to find absolutely no support within a 15km radius, 320 minutes of Veratau trying to pretend he knows what he’s doing, 77 drops of the head from Barnes after poor execution from his centres as he ponders what would have happened had it been Tate or Hodges and a point differential of -18.

And I can't give this habit up, why?

Perhaps it’s the situation? They've been such a bad team for such a long time they have officially entered the globetrotter opponent zone.  Where it’s a given that they will lose, no matter how much they try the other team will prevail as if it were scripted that way. Currently the Rabbitohs, Mark Philippoussis and all NZ non-rugby teams are members; the Cowboys, Cairns Taipans (let’s just include most of the NBL for the better part of the last decade); Australian Soccer team and English cricket team are former members.  No. wait....sorry, England are back in.

Opposition teams currently don't see the Reds as a threat.  Their mindset has them thinking about the Waratahs or the Bulls in the coming weeks effectively taking the pressure off them in the current situation allowing them to play controlled rugby.  This is a tough mentality to change considering the Reds can’t score from more than 15 meters out, are forced to take shots at goal at every opportunity because they can’t win lineouts or scrums and have no ability whatsoever to finish strong in the last quarter.  I’m placing responsibility on the administration.

Ninety nine percent of the time I blame the players for not producing because at the end of the day the coaching staff are NOT in the game (this is especially true in Australian sports).  However in this case I put total blame on the ENTIRE Reds organisation.  They have no chance but to be a make up the numbers team.  Out of the four Australian based super 14 franchises the Reds, barring Berrick Barnes signing (and even that fell in to their hands) and Clinton Schifcofske (A stand out on a bad team, lets wait to see how much of an impact he has when Latham returns before we give him a pass) have done the worst team building/recruiting job of all.  If anything they’ve gone backwards in the process.

I can’t seem to fathom why this is.  At present they have first pick at everything Queensland rugby and league offers at the high school level (not to mention any disgruntled Broncos players not already wearing a Waratahs jersey).  This player pool is easily the biggest in the country considering anybody with a bit of talent in the Northern Territory can be thrown in as well. So why aren’t they utilising it when everyone else is?

The Broncos have been focusing on youth development for years, most recently with Special K.  The Storm grabbed Inglis and turned him into a super star, or at least he would be if anyone in Melbourne knew who the Storm were.  The Waratahs have Hewat (possibly the most underrated player of all time, John Connolly HELLO), the Force have Drew Mitchell and Digby Ioane to name a few.  The list goes on.  How do we fix this?

Two words - NATIONAL DRAFT (that’s a column in itself)

Back to the Reds...

From what I can gather their policy in the forwards is size in front of everything, resulting in a lot of technical deficiency around the rucks eventually leading to turnovers.  To me a ruck is like a damn wall which, if not constructed right will crack no matter how big the pieces are.  I thought about hammering the Reds on their scrummaging here but after a mostly positive effort last week against a good Blues pack I decided not to.  Especially considering Australian scrums are a much bigger problem than the Reds.

This of course leads to slow ball which has our greatest weapon, Barnes, on the back foot.  This compounded with the fact that his best option is old man Tune (both wingers are most of the way through the Dummies Guide to Rugby, Johansson isn't much more than a stylish battering ram and Schifcofske doesn’t seem to know when to come in and out of the line) would explain why they can't score from more than 15m out.

And that’s all I can think of right now.  My head hurts from all the bad stats, horrible truths and resulting lack of hope for the future.  I'm assuming this is a symptom of the battered fan illness I'm suffering from.  How much worse can this get? Can it become terminal? Will I one day be forced to watch the Reds through a bubble?

Brisbane Sports Fan (BSF)