Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nGordon was on the end of a neat Jock Campbell linebreak for his first try before doing it himself to ice the contest as the Reds moved to 3-1.<\/p>\n
Hopping a defender as he collected a pass, Gordon brushed off two more then blazed around Wallabies back Harry Potter, who had fresher legs after coming off the bench at fullback, for a 55-metre try.<\/p>\n
It followed Gordon’s match-winning try in Canberra a week earlier and comes in his first Super Rugby Pacific season since the former Melbourne Rebels No.10’s injury-marred NRL cameo with Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
Test and club teammate McReight chuckled at the mention of Gordon’s highlight reel plays, and said it was other areas of his game that had impressed in a pleasing sign for Australian rugby ahead of next year’s home World Cup.<\/p>\n
“As long as there’s not any photos again of his receding hairline, he was a bit off that last week,” the flanker, in his first season as Reds captain, laughed.<\/p>\n
“Defending with him … he throws his body around. As a loose forward I love that, respect that massively, he’s searching for blokes (to tackle).”<\/p>\n
The Wallabies have cycled through No.10 options in recent years, with Gordon’s fellow Reds No.10 Tom Lynagh starting in all three British and Irish Lions Tests last year.<\/p>\n
But he’s been unsighted so far this season as he rehabilitates a leg injury, while Ben Donaldson’s Western Force are 1-4.<\/p>\n
Tane Edmed is yet to put his mark on the Brumbies (3-2) since an off-season move from the Waratahs (2-2), who promoted Jack Debreczeni ahead of Lawson Creighton to face the Reds.<\/p>\n
McReight said Gordon had quickly won over his teammates and was owning the position.<\/p>\n
“He can take criticism on the field really well,” the No.7 said.<\/p>\n
“Boys can get into him – he’s our 10 and we need him talking – and he steps up.<\/p>\n
“There’s no better image in any forward’s mind (than) when you see your 10 wanting the ball and taking the space and he’s done it in back-to-back weeks.”<\/p>\n
Reds coach Les Kiss admitted he’d been forced to play Gordon for longer than planned due to injuries and the match situation in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
He hinted there could be changes to manage players’ workloads ahead of stern tests in Fiji and Wellington – against the Drua and Hurricanes – in the next fortnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies star Fraser McReight has delivered a telling endorsement of returning flyhalf Carter Gordon after the playmaker produced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,12061,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-542674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-queensland-reds","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542674","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=542674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}