Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nHis first half cameo followed 45 minutes of game time against the Western Force a week ago.<\/p>\n
Gordon threw the last pass for a Jock Campbell try and narrowly missed his winger with a long cross-field kick in striving to set up another.<\/p>\n
But there was constant spilled ball and loose play that the Waratahs exploited in a procession that drew the ire of Reds coach Les Kiss, who will take over as Wallabies boss later this year.<\/p>\n
Gordon shifted to the Melbourne Rebels from the Reds in 2021 as an uncapped rookie, before his controversial selection at the 2023 World Cup.<\/p>\n
He then shocked with an NRL switch to Gold Coast, eventually ending that injury-plagued stint when he signed a three-year deal with the Reds late last year before earning a ninth Wallabies cap against Italy.<\/p>\n
“It just feels like normal now. I wouldn’t say it’s a massive shock to the system,” Gordon told AAP.<\/p>\n
“I’m just coming back and adding to what I’d built, before I went to league.<\/p>\n
“Sloppy today, but I have built over these two games and it’s better (to be sloppy now) than in the first round.<\/p>\n
“We weren’t executing and we saw heaps of drop ball and all that. We’ll take a look at this game pretty seriously.”<\/p>\n
Kiss was unimpressed with his side’s performance but said Gordon’s time was a plus.<\/p>\n
“He created some moments there \u2026 a bit rusty but to get those minutes in today, in those (hot) conditions,” the coach said.<\/p>\n
“Training only does so much. A bit over 80 minutes of footy – it’s been good in terms of where he wants to go.<\/p>\n
“A couple of good things in his kicking game, but he won’t be fully happy.”<\/p>\n
Kiss said Tom Lynagh, who started at No.10 in all three British and Irish Lions Tests last year, was “very close” to being fit to play after a lay-off with concussion and hamstring injuries.<\/p>\n
A fit Lynagh, who owned the Reds’ No.10 jersey last season, would leave Kiss with a huge call to make on his starting flyhalf.<\/p>\n
“Over the next 10 days we’ll find out,” he said of Lynagh’s availability for round one, against NSW on February 13.<\/p>\n
“There will be some decisions in a number of places, not only No.10.<\/p>\n
“Before Christmas he did a lot of good work and then had an incident that jarred him and put him back a week or two. But he’s committed to the work and it’s as good as I’ve seen him.<\/p>\n
“As soon as we know he’s right to go we’ll do it.”<\/p>\n
The writing was on the wall when Force recruit Harry Potter anticipated Dre Pakeho’s long-cut pass to race 65 metres and score the first try, before the NSW winger’s flick pass put No.8 Leafi Talataina over for the first of his two.<\/p>\n
Sid Harvey also impressed on the left wing while Joey Walton’s grubber to fellow centre George Poolman created another crisp five-pointer.<\/p>\n
“The boys have worked hard for three months and delivered … and our fitness looked good,” Waratahs coach Dan McKellar said.<\/p>\n
“You’ve got to have that balance; play the width, challenge on the edges and go through the middle. But we won’t get too far ahead of ourselves.”<\/p>\n
The Waratahs will play the Brumbies in Canberra on Thursday in their final hit-out before hosting the Reds in round one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pre-season spanking from the NSW Waratahs has delivered Carter Gordon a reality check as the World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,32951,12061,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-450522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nsw-waratahs","tag-queensland-reds","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450522","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=450522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}