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Frenemies and great expectations: Super Rugby Pacific 2023 preview

Backstage at the end of Wednesday’s Super Rugby launch, Waratahs coach Darren Coleman walked up to his Brumbies counterpart Stephen Larkham and grabbed both shoulders. “See you, Stee-VUN,” Coleman grinned. “Have a shit 10 days, I hope everything falls apart.” They slapped each other’s backs and laughed.

This is Australian rugby. Coleman and Larkham go back to Canberra a decade ago, when the former was running the Brumbies Academy and Larkham pipped him at the post for the senior team attack coach job. They overlapped for a season before Coleman went to Japan.

For most of the morning on Wednesday they traded friendly fire for the cameras and chatted freely away from them. Next Friday night, however, they will stride out on to the new turf at Allianz Stadium, full of purpose and the exquisite anxiety of the new season.

Coleman is out to prove he can turn last year’s surprise entertainers into contenders for the title. They’re hunting a top-four finish for the regular season and they’ve powered up – putting on an average seven kilograms per player across the squad – to ensure they have the firepower to claim it.

Larkham wants to build sustainable success, which starts with winning the comp. He’s returned from the rain and mud of Ireland’s southern province, Munster, to have a second bite at running Australia’s most consistent franchise. The Brumbies have made it to the final four of the full Super Rugby competition on five occasions over the past decade, but it has been 19 years since they’ve touched the trophy.

The Waratahs played three trials during the past three weeks, but early this week Coleman hived off his first-choice 23 and trained their gazes on round one. With the exception of Nemani Nadolo and Hugh Sinclair, none of them will play in Saturday’s final trial against a combined West Harbour-Two Blues team. That’s the hard line under the Opera House banter. Coleman wants first blood against Bernie’s Brumbies and he’s throwing everything at the team’s Allianz Stadium return.

After that, the Waratahs go on the road for three straight games – Fiji’s Drua and the Rebels in Melbourne, then the Hurricanes in Wellington – before returning to Moore Park to host the Chiefs. Then it’s chapter two against the Brumbies in Canberra before a mid-season bye.

Expectations are high. As Reds coach Brad Thorn pointed out, the Waratahs are the team everyone is talking about after last season’s gains, some canny recruitment and the presence of X-factor players Lachie Swinton, Mark Nawanqanitawase and teenage excitement machine Max Jorgensen.

They underpin a team stacked with Test quality in almost every position. Angus Bell, Dave Porecki, Tolu Latu, Harry Johnson-Holmes, Ned Hanigan and Jed Holloway in the tight five, Michael Hooper and Langi Gleeson in the back row, plus World Cup hopeful Charlie Gamble, who will be eligible for the Wallabies in April. The quality doesn’t dip in the backs, either, with captain Jake Gordon, five-eighth Ben Donaldson, Test centres Lalakai Foketi and Izaia Perese and the eye-popping athleticism of Mark Nawaqanitawase on the wing.

It’s an embarrassment of riches. Unlike last season, when the Waratahs caught some teams by surprise, there won’t be a team in the competition without ‘Tah week’ circled in red on the season planner.

Here are five things to watch in Super Rugby Pacific 2023…

1. The band is back together
For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, Super Rugby will be played in a full trans-Tasman format, which means the five Australian franchises will be tested by New Zealand teams straight out of the gate. This is a big change from last year, when Covid-19 restrictions kept the two sides of the Tasman siloed until halfway through the season. This affected teams differently. The Waratahs benefited from the long run up but the Reds, who beat the Waratahs twice, battled. “It’s really hard to get your marker when you’re playing Australian sides, just because we’ve been so successful against them in the past,” Queensland captain Tate McDermott said. “How we play is similar to a Kiwi side so it does trouble Aussie sides, but getting [New Zealand teams] from round one (the Reds host the Hurricanes in Townsville), it’s a line in the sand. We’ll know exactly where we are.”

2. New faces
Nawaqanitawase and Gleeson attracted hype for NSW last season, but the trials threw up a host of new names. Wing/fullback Max Jorgensen is grabbing the early attention in NSW and looks set to make his professional debut in round one, while Reds five-eighth Tom Lynagh and winger Floyd Aubrey impressed for Queensland. Rebels coach Kevin Foote is expecting big things from big No.6 Josh Kemeny after an Australia A campaign last year, young Pumas prop Santiago Medrano is Simon Cron’s top tip in the west, while sevens speedster Cory Toole gets Larkham’s vote. “He’s genuinely quick and it’s not just track sprint-quick, off the mark he’s got a really good step, he’s embarrassing guys at training. He’s electric,” Larkham said.

3. Fiji time
Steaming hot or driving rain, or both (see Tweet from a former Fiji Rugby Union general manager below). Long bus rides and loud crowds. As Scott Robertson told the Super Rugby launch on Wednesday, there is no way you can physically prepare to play in Fiji, you can only mentally prepare to hurt. New Rebels captain Rob Leota seconded Razor’s comments after the Rebels’ pre-season trial in Lautoka. Nil-all at halftime, the Rebels collapsed to lose 24-0. Leota said he could feel his teammates disappear into themselves. “It started off very hot and then it was torrential rain in the second half,” he said. “You have to prepare for the unexpected over there, but most of all it’s the heat.” The Rebels and the Reds are the only Australian teams to play away in Fiji, and the Reds will also head to Samoa to play Moana Pasifika in round eight.

New rules, new tricks
There’s been plenty said about the new rule tweaks introduced around shot clocks, foul play protocol and a new rule to improving attacking opportunities off the back of the scrum, with Australia’s foremost running No.9, McDermott, predicting that last one would play nicely into the hands of the Reds. On the other side of the match day experience, broadcaster Stan is also working to make Super Rugby more exciting, with more in-game access to players and coaches. Purists don’t like the halftime interview, where a presenter tries to extract fresh insights from an exhausted player as they trudge off the field. They might like the Hot Seat, though, which uses the same concept to quiz a substituted player about what the game feels like for those out there in the heat of battle.

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Eddie effect
The return of Eddie Jones has sent an electric current through Australia’s Super Rugby squads. The Dave Rennie favourites are on edge, while the players who found themselves on the outer have renewed hope. After name-dropping many of those forgotten figures – Suliasi Vunivalu, Harry Wilson and Fraser McReight, to name a few – Jones has studiously avoided commenting on individuals since the trial games started. In any case, the smart players know that trying to impress a Wallabies coach is fool’s gold. Performance for the team will be the best way to catch Jones’s eye.

Watch all the action from the Six Nations with every match streaming ad-free, live and exclusive on Stan Sport. Round 3 returns Sunday 26 February, with Italy v Ireland (1:05am AEDT), Wales v England (3:35am AEDT) and France v Scotland (1:50am AEDT).