Brumbies get a lesson from the Bulls

In Round 2 the Brumbies lost to the Bulls, which at the moment is not a complete embarrassment with the way the Bulls are playing.

However with a star-studded team the Brumbies are under presesure of expectation to perform well this year. Nothing they have done so far meets that expectations but it is early days.

At this stage my prediction is they will be just in or just out of the top 4.

And that's not all the Bulls are happy to do

After 2 rounds something else is apparent about the Bulls.

The Bulls also stand apart from all teams, even those who traditionally espouse they define running rugby - the Bulls are happy to forgo the 3 points from gift penalties to drive to the line for a try and 5-7 points. I have never seen a team so consistantly and confidently do this. A great sign for their self-belief.

On this alone they look like they will be in the play-offs, provided the wheels don't fall off on their road trip or they suffer injury to key personal.

Bulls happy to come from behind

After round 2 something else is apparent - the Bulls are taking on the Crusaders mentality (intentially or otherwise, and are happy to let the lead go to the opponent before coming back and taking over the game again.

And just as it worked for the Crusaders, sometimese it doesn't. There are going to times, especially when they are on the road, when they are not going to be able to pull it back in and will lose.

Seems that when you are a great team, confident and relaxed, you loose the lead often at the start.

High scoring games

After 2 rounds one thing is clear - the way the rules changes are  being implemented, especially in the first few games of the year when the refs are anal (implementing the instructions  they have received in a highly compliant manner) - the scores are really high, both by winning and losing team.

A combination of excessive penalties (especially for slowing the ball down in rucks etc), more than average yellow cards, and general stand-off ness by the players in fear of infringing is causing massive scorelines.

Will be interesting to see if the players close the loop holes or otherwise work out how to 'work the system' and/or the refs get tired of stopping play - and the scores come back down. Or not.

Its been coming for so long - Reds beat Crusaders

Even though the Reds haven't beaten the Crusaders for some 10 years, this results been building up, at least when playing in Brisbane.  The Crusaders have been so good for so long I believe they have a challenge raising their urgency when playing team with lesser recent performance histories. And if the game gets away on them, they don't currently have the magic needed to get back to win. It's been coming.

Reds - 41 v Crusaders (NZ) - 20