When a great football team comes into being, it is like a whole set of wonderful jigsaw pieces fitting perfectly together to make a masterpiece, that in its final form comes complete with a shining trophy held high by the captain.
This Waratahs side at the beginning of the 2026 season has got some very strong pieces to play with.
Max Jorgensen of the Waratahs celebrates a try during the round two Super Rugby match.Credit: Getty Images
We’ve got an absolutely – if you’ll say it again commentator Michael Hooper, “world class, world class, WORLD CLASS” – winger, in Max Jorgensen. On a good night, he comes as part of a matching set, with Harry Potter also capable of devastating play, out on the right.
We have a potentially world class centre in Joseph Suaalii, who we know – because we have seen it – is capable of slicing and dicing even the best defences and leaping far higher than even the tallest timber receiving kick-offs.
We’ve got the hardest working back-rower in the game, in Charlie Gamble. We’ve got a scrum that, when it works, can push an opposing scrum around like a rusty shopping trolley in a Woolies car park.
We’ve got a line-out that can not only win its own ball, but also regularly steal the opponent’s pill.
Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii ahead of the game at Allianz Stadium.Credit: Getty Images
The problem, as witnessed in Friday night’s match against Fijian Drua at the Sydney Football Stadium, is those pieces don’t yet quite fit together.
It’s one thing for Jorgensen to demonstrate his brilliance by leaving a swarming defence completely mesmerised, as he uses all of five centimetres of space inside the touch-line to step them three times, and make his way through for a superb try.
It’s another for Gamble to produce frequent turnovers, stunning tackles, and still have the wherewithal to do a dummy from the base of a maul, suck in the defence, and go over between the posts.
Those two things alone allowed the Waratahs to go to a 14-10 lead against a Fijian Drua side that never stopped trying.
The problem is such brilliant pieces as those, still don’t yet quite fit with the rest of the puzzle!
Time and again we had bursts of brilliance that – if they could just have linked together without interruption – could have run up a cricket score.
Time and again, alas, those bursts of brilliance fell apart, or were isolated from each other, because of knock-ons, awry passes, kicks out on the full and spilled high-balls.
The frustration of this was compounded by the fact that despite having a player of Suaalii’s calibre, the ball just about never got to him in space, and the game plan never once included doing a short-kick off with the centre charging through and leaping high to tap it back, as we know he can do so effortlessly!
Seriously, coach Dan McKellar, in Suaalii, you’ve got a great weapon in world rugby, right there in sky blue ranks – can we not even try and fire it in anger?
And yes, in the second half the Waratahs put together another three tries – two to the reserve hooker, Ioane Moananu, and another one from Jorgensen for good measure, to give the flying winger four tries in the opening two matches of the season – but don’t be fooled. It all could have been so much more!
McKellar acknowledged as much afterwards, saying: “To be honest, I thought they left another thirty or forty points out on the field.”
I’d have put it at 50. They need composure. They need the ability to make a break and consolidate, not push the passes, not try and score off every play. Grind them down. Get the space. And then unleash the maestros.
Look, all up, it is a promising start for the Waratahs in 2026, with two bonus point wins putting them at the top of the table, and a bye next week to get some precious rest. But no one who looks at it with clear eyes can think all the brilliant pieces yet fit together to make the masterpiece in sky blue and gleaming trophy we are looking for.
At the moment it’s a good drawing, with the signature of Max Jorgensen in the bottom right-hand corner, and that’s not enough.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Most Viewed in Sport
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
