Melbourne Rebels Captain Dane Haylett-Petty is confident his side will click into gear when they take on the Queensland Reds on Saturday night in what will be the Rebels first finals appearance in Super Rugby.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Haylett-Petty revealed the Rebels past fortnight of finals-like rugby has them primed for their Qualfying Final in Brisbane.
“We probably haven’t played our best footy but we have showed a lot of resilience,” Haylett-Petty said.
“It sets us up well because we have had to play a do or die game already whereas the Reds haven’t.”
The skipper says the Rebels will take significant confidence from the last meeting between the two sides notwithstanding the round 7 result going in favour of the Reds.
Despite missing the game through injury, Haylett-Petty admits it was technical errors that cost the Rebels that night, having enjoyed 67% of possession.
“We got over the line five times so definitely take a lot of confidence. I think we enjoy playing the Reds, they are obviously playing really good rugby at the moment and they’ve got a lot of good players,” he said.
“There’s some technical things we need to do better but we know that at our best we are good enough to beat them.”
“We probably don’t feel like we have quite fired yet and it hasn’t quite clicked (for us) the last couple of weeks so we are just one game away from really clicking.”
Having spent the whole Vodafone Super Rugby AU season away from Melbourne, Haylett-Petty has thanked Rebels fans and says his side wants to give the fans something to cheer about in the next few weeks.
“We have got amazing fans and are really conscious that they have been doing it tough in lockdown and its one of the things we have been wanting to play for.
“We are proud to be playing for Melbourne and for the people (of the city) and hopefully they can enjoy 80 minutes each week of our footy so we just want to do them proud and we will do it for them this weekend.”
The Rebels tackle the Queensland Reds on Saturday night in Brisbane for a place in the Vodafone Super Rugby AU Grand Final.
