MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Emotions will run high as the Melbourne Rebels march out for their first Super Rugby Pacific playoff knowing that defeat will mark the end of the team’s 14-year history.
The chronically indebted club will be cut from the competition at season’s end, with Rugby Australia having rejected a consortium’s rescue plan last week due to concerns over its viability.
Having scraped into the top eight despite losing their last six matches, the Rebels will have to rewrite history against the top-ranked Wellington Hurricanes on Saturday to stave off extinction for one more week.
Though many have tried, no Australian side have won a playoff in New Zealand in 28 years of Super Rugby.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, have not lost at home all season and gave the Rebels a 54-28 hiding on their last visit.
It all amounts to a daunting task for the Rebels’ players and staff as they look to put on a decent show in the quarter-final for a small band of travelling fans and for those watching on screens from home.
Rebels head coach Kevin Foote will be among those looking for a new job after seven years at the club, having first joined as a defence coach in 2018 under former boss Dave Wessels.
Foote stepped up to take the top job in 2021 when fellow South African Wessels was fired for not producing a winning team — like every previous Rebels coach.
Though coaching through a season of crisis, the plain-spoken Foote has been all business in public appearances and was not about to let his emotions get the better of him at a press conference on Tuesday.
“Controlling what you can control has been our mantra from the get-go and when we do leave we want to leave with our heads held high,” the 45-year-old told reporters.
“My job is to control (the players’) emotions as best I can … but it’s quarter-finals, and it’s something special for us and there’s a lot of excitement around that.
“I understand that the history tells you that the Australian teams haven’t done well but you’re only one result away from doing something special so you can’t worry about that.”
The Rebels welcome back Carter Gordon after the Wallabies’ World Cup flyhalf took two weeks’ off with concussion symptoms.
Captain and loose forward Rob Leota has also been given the green light to play after clearing concussion protocols.
The Rebels may need the entire squad to play out of their skins to top the Hurricanes, who are unlikely to underestimate a Rebels team desperate to finish the season with pride.
“We’ve got huge empathy to the situation as fellow professionals,” said the Hurricanes’ Scottish coach Clark Laidlaw.
“The last thing we want to see is people not having a job next year for whatever reason it is.
“Emotion’s a big part of rugby and knockout rugby, anyway. So we need to respect that and be aware of it because emotions can help you if channelled in the right direction.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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