The NSW Waratahs are intent on shedding their Jekyll-and-Hyde reputation and morphing into serious Super Rugby Pacific title contenders.<\/p>\n
After starting their season with stylish two bonus-point victories to share top spot, the Waratahs’ star-studded class of 2026 hope to learn from the harsh lessons of last year when all too often heavy wins preceded despairing defeats.<\/p>\n
Never were their inconsistencies more evident than in toppling the ladder-leading Chiefs in round six last season and then slumping to the bottom-placed Fijian Drua the following week.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Dan McKellar’s side faded to miss the play-offs, finishing eighth, after opening with three straight wins.<\/p>\n
Playmaker Lawson Creighton says the Tahs must avoid the same lulls if they want to be a finals force, and better, this year.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a great start. The group’s in a really good spot,” Creighton told AAP on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“But we don’t want to be that inconsistent team like we were last year. We really think we can push for finals and all that type of stuff.<\/p>\n
“So it’s important we just keep to our processes every week, keep locking in and working hard.”<\/p>\n
Lawson Creighton says the Waratahs have started the season brightly.\u00a0Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
After taking down arch-rivals the Queensland Reds and the Drua, both at home, the Waratahs know hosting the Hurricanes after this week’s bye will be a step up.<\/p>\n
“Most of the Kiwis teams, they’re bigger bodies, so we’ve just got to match them physically,” Creighton said.<\/p>\n
“That’s a big part of the game, that set-piece and physicality around the ruck, creating those opportunities.<\/p>\n
“We can probably sharpen the sword a little bit with our execution with some of our players and things like that, so it’s really positive.<\/p>\n
“It’s only the back end of February at the moment, so there’s plenty of improvement to come.”<\/p>\n
Blessed to be servicing a million-dollar backline featuring the likes of Wallabies superstars Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Max Jorgensen as well as other Test reps, Creighton is excited by how much more potent the Tahs can be.<\/p>\n
“It’s great. Those guys sort of just play off the back of our forwards, who have shown massive improvement over the pre-season,” the No.10 said.<\/p>\n
“They’re operating really well at set-piece, so that makes it easier and easy for me really. I’ve just got to get the footy to those boys in good areas and and let them do their thing.”<\/p>\n
After the Hurricanes, the Sydney side faces the Reds again in round six, then the Blues, Brumbies and Chiefs.<\/p>\n
“So now we’ve got a run a sort of five games, so we’ll get a good test of where we’re at,” Creighton said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NSW Waratahs are intent on shedding their Jekyll-and-Hyde reputation and morphing into serious Super Rugby Pacific title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-505172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505172","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=505172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}