A brutal honesty session in which they admitted they did not turn up physically in Africa, could shape as the turning point in the Melbourne Rebels’ Super Rugby season.
The Rebels hauled their season back on track with a 32-13 win over the Reds at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on Saturday, just days after confronting their weaknesses in a frank team meeting.
After returning from their African tour with a pair of losses, the Rebels players, coach David Wessels and his staff dissected their fadeouts against the Lions and Sharks, admitting their performances had been disappointing.
“We were obviously disappointed to lose (to the Sharks) last week but we were more disappointed with our performance,” Wessels said.
“So it was really important that we came back here and fixed that.
“We had a pretty honest conversation on Monday. There’s a certain standard that we expect from each other and we didn’t deliver that in Durban last week.
“Rugby is a contact sport and last week we didn’t front up physically to the Sharks team and it was important that we made a statement with our physicality this week.”
Captain Angus Cottrell said the review was “pretty hard”.
“I think just that intensity level, we weren’t bringing against the Sharks, we were going away from our game, so on Monday it was pretty tough,” he said.
“We had a couple of good days at training and obviously it resulted in a good performance (against the Reds).”
Wessels said that honesty was vital.
“I think the one demand we have of people in our environment is they work to get better every day,” he said.
“I just felt on our trip to Durban, for whatever reason that hadn’t happened – staff and players, myself included.
“So we just put that on the table, that that’s not acceptable what happened there.
“Not from a scoreboard point of view but from a performance and development point of view.
“We let ourselves down and it was really important to see that people responded to that, and it’s great to see that they did.”
The Rebels took their frustrations out on the Reds in their most complete performance of the season.
“Combined with the travel and on the back of a disappointing performance, we’re happy with the way we played,” Wessls said.
“We’re four from six now but the important thing is we’ve won two away Aussie derbies which is good and we’ve also got our longest or heaviest travel block behind us now.”
But they are not getting too far ahead of themselves.
“I think the thing I’ve learnt in this job is that you’re never too up and you’re never too down,” Wessels said.
“You’re never going as well as you think you are and you’re never going as badly as you think you are.
“Next week is a huge challenge, I actually think the Sunwolves are playing some really good rugby, they’re very well coached and they’ll have their tails up as well.
“The challenge is for us to enjoy this – because I think sometimes last year we didn’t enjoy our wins enough – but then you can’t go over the top with it because next week is another challenge for us.
“But sleeping in our own beds for a change will be good.”