The Reds will put the finishing touches on their pre-season preparations when they welcome back several experienced players for Friday's clash with the Chiefs at Stockland Stadium Sunshine Coast.
Ewen McKenzie's men will be eager to continue their winning form after producing a thrilling 41-35 victory over the Blues Saturday.
McKenzie is expected to again roll out a large contingent of Wallabies against the Chiefs with the match the perfect lead-up to the team's round one Super Rugby affair against the Brumbies in Canberra on February 16.
McKenzie will assess the availability of his playing group prior to Tuesday's team announcement although Reds and Wallabies captain James Horwill, hooker Saia Faingaa, lock Rob Simmons, backrower Jake Schatz and winger Dom Shipperley are among a group of players returning to the fold.
"We'll assess the health of certain individuals and decide on the make-up of our squad early in the week but at this stage we're confident of welcoming back a number of guys for our trial against the Chiefs," McKenzie said.
"Everything for us at this stage is about ensuring we are in the best possible space going into next week's match against the Brumbies, so it's important that we see guys back out on the field performing before we make selection decisions for round one.
"Being our last trial game before the Super Rugby competition begins, our fans can expect at least as many Wallabies as we had in Toowoomba playing on Friday night."
The Reds will enter the match buoyed by their seven-try performance against the Blues in Toowoomba, where a team boasting 11 capped Wallabies from 2012 got the Reds off to the perfect start in 2013.
McKenzie said the Reds would take plenty of positives from that match with the high-intensify affair exactly what the team was seeking ahead of the season.
"We deliberately targeted Kiwi teams for our trials because in the end you want to be tested and they test you out in defence. We'll take a lot out of Saturday night's game," he said.
The Reds completed the match relatively unscathed although centre Anthony Faingaa will have an x-ray on his left hand on Monday morning.
Friday's match will see the Super Rugby champions of the past two seasons go head-to-head for the first time since their enthralling round 12 contest last year produced 10 tries and finished with the Reds victorious 42-27.
Comments
PREEST says...
@Tha_mai. What are you talking about? A blues team with almost all its players debuting in super rugby holds a wallabies studded side to only a six point winning margin. Thats impressive. These are trial games to test new players and new combinations. If kirwin just played his all blacks he wont discover any of his new talent and up and comers. The point of the trials is not so much to win but to TRAIL new players. Dont see how you cant understand that.
Kirwin can take a lot of positives from his new guys and now has to work out where yo place then amongst his more experienced players.
Posted 09:56 04th February 2013
Trinats2 says...
tha_mai:
Maybe the Blues should run out this side all year, it's the closest they have come to the Reds in past few years, including Edan park last year, injury hit Reds won 23 - 11
Isograford:
Who did the blues play last year in per season ???
Posted 09:38 04th February 2013
tha_mai says...
11 capped Wallabies - v a Blues team with 18 uncapped players at Super level. Don't know what Kirwan's master plan is, makes a joke of pre-season matches if he continues to rest so many players
Posted 23:18 03rd February 2013
Isograford says...
Just to put into perspective how irrelevant these games are in terms of results, the Blues won all five of their pre-season games last year.
Posted 18:52 03rd February 2013
melkdave says...
Will be good to se how he plays after such along lay off.Dont know if his been playing in the warm ups ,but i expect he has lolBoth the Reds and Australia need a fit Horwill in my opinion,to give them direction and leadership.
Posted 14:53 03rd February 2013