The Queensland Reds have won a spot in the grand final of the Super Rugby Under-16s with their 24-12 win over the Western Force in Perth today.<\/p>\n
The match was strongly contested in rainy conditions and the value of a fast start was vital for the young Queenslanders.<\/p>\n
The Reds scored their four tries in the first half, including flanker Matti Gill’s opening five-pointer after just four minutes when the size and power of the pack dominated play.<\/p>\n
The unbeaten NSW Waratahs have already locked up top spot and hosting rights for a November 1 grand final in Sydney.<\/p>\n
The match in Perth was all-important to potentially decide who the Waratahs would play.<\/p>\n
The win means the Reds move into second spot on nine points, separated from the Force (nine) by a vastly superior points differential and a head-to-head success.<\/p>\n
The Force cannot improve their position with a Round 5 bye while the Victorian U16s pulled off the upset of the series to toppled the ACT Brumbies 31-20 in Melbourne on Saturday.<\/p>\n
That result ruled out the Brumbies from a late rally to get into grand final contention.<\/p>\n
The table sits at Waratahs (14 points from three games, +195), Reds (nine points from three games, +66), Western Force (nine points from four games, -72), Victoria (four points from three games, -71) and Brumbies (no points from three games, -118).<\/p>\n
The Reds and Brumbies U16s meet at Ballymore Stadium on Saturday at 10am as the first leg of a double-header with the Reds playing Japan’s Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n
A Watch Party at Ballymore to view the Wallabies vs Japan Test on the big screen will follow the Reds game.<\/p>\n
Queensland Reds 24<\/p>\n
Tries: Gill 2, Te Whitu, Boakes<\/p>\n
Conversions: Meredith 2\n<\/p>\n
Def<\/p>\n
Western Force 12<\/p>\n
Tries: Oosthuizen, Tiakia<\/p>\n
Conversion: Heke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Queensland Reds have won a spot in the grand final of the Super Rugby Under-16s with their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,12061,760,85],"class_list":["post-224798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-queensland-reds","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}