{"id":372327,"date":"2024-03-01T10:42:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T11:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=372327"},"modified":"2024-03-03T03:04:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T03:04:28","slug":"hurting-all-of-us-rebels-perfect-response-to-soft-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=372327","title":{"rendered":"'Hurting all of us': Rebels' perfect response to 'soft' jab"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pain in Rob Leota's wobbly voice summed up the feeling among the Melbourne Rebels<\/a> \u2013 that win meant a lot.<\/p>\n

Already facing financial strain and an uncertain future, the Rebels offered up a performance in round one Wallabies legend Tim Horan labelled soft.<\/p>\n

That struck a chord with the 23-man squad, who turned around a 34-19 deficit in the 50th minute against the Western Force<\/a> to win 48-34 at full-time.<\/p>\n

Watch all the action from the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season, with <\/strong><\/em>every match ad-free, live and and on demand on Stan Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The scrum was almost infallible from the Rebels and a shaky line-out only got better as the match wore on.<\/p>\n

"I'm so proud," said captain Leota.<\/p>\n

\"Josh<\/p>\n

"Just being part of that pack, our forwards coach Geoff Parling puts a lot of effort in, so when we hear messages like that it's all of us, it's hurting all of us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Geoff got a little bit emotional before our game today and we really wanted to do a job for him and really just block out that criticism and focus on us.<\/p>\n

"We're glad that we're able to show a good performance as a pack and we'll keep doing that the whole year."<\/p>\n

\"Melbourne<\/p>\n

The Rebels were beaten by the Brumbies in round one\ufeff, smashed 30-3 at home.<\/p>\n

That led Horan to unleash a brutal summation of the team's efforts.<\/p>\n

"The forward pack of the Rebels was as soft as I've seen them," he said in the days after.<\/p>\n

"I really hope they bounce back this weekend because Andrew Kellaway at fullback was the only shining light for that Rebels team."<\/p>\n

\"Epic<\/p>\n

Indeed, Kellaway was a shining light for the Rebels again, scoring the opening try and nabbing another by the end of the match.<\/p>\n

Asked how the confidence levels were in the camp, Andrew Kellaway replied, "Pretty low after last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"I think we were all disappointed with that one. Look, a slow start again, but another step in the right direction."<\/p>\n

After Kellaway's first effort in the seventh minute, the Force responded through Chase Tiatia and Tim Horton, who scored back-to-back in the space of six minutes.<\/p>\n

\"Filipo<\/p>\n

Carter Gordon brought the deficit back just before half-time with a try in the 34th minute before his hard work was undone by a Max Burey just three minutes later.<\/p>\n

At the break, the Force led 24-19.<\/p>\n

Kellaway scored his second just six minutes into the second half before Michael Wells responded almost immediately, plonking the ball down two minutes later.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1763521943402340391<\/a><\/p>\n

From there, it was one-way traffic at 34-15. Josh Kemeny stretched over to score in the 53rd minute and Gordon intercepted the ball to run away from the Force defensive for his second.<\/p>\n

Filipo Daugunu scored the first of his two tries in the 57th minute with an epic run down the sideline and 15 minutes later was in for another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All told, the Rebels were victors 48-34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pain in Rob Leota's wobbly voice summed up the feeling among the Melbourne Rebels \u2013 that win meant a lot. Already facing financial strain […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372327"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372335,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372327\/revisions\/372335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/372329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}