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Getty Images<\/p>\n
Reds chief playmaker, Quade Cooper, will not play against The Sharks because of a one-week suspension.<\/p>\n
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The Sharks will have arrived in Brisbane yesterday to learn that the Reds\u2019 chief playmaker, Quade Cooper, will not play against them because of a one-week suspension handed out to him for a dangerous tackle on New South Wales centre Berrick Barnes during their match at the weekend, won 32-16 by the Queenslanders. <\/p>\n
Good news indeed for the Sharks given that Cooper was rediscovering his best form after missing the first half of the competition because of a horrific knee injury sustained late last year. <\/p>\n
Cooper was sin-binned for the offence yet has received further off-field censure, which seems tough, but the Sharks will not be complaining because Cooper\u2019s combination with scrumhalf Will Genia is vital to how the Reds play. <\/p>\n
Either utility back Ben Lucas or goal-kicking centre Mike Harris is expected to take Cooper\u2019s place at No 10. <\/p>\n
Just before the Sharks flew out, assistant coach Grant Bashford gave his thoughts on the up-coming quarter-final against the Queenslanders. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey had a lot of players injured at the start of the tournament, including Quade Cooper, and as a lot of those key players have come back, they\u2019ve gained rhythm and flow and confidence in the way they\u2019ve played,\u201d Bashford said. <\/p>\n
\u201cCooper has been quite instrumental in their comeback. They\u2019ve played most of the year without him and still managed to crack the play-offs. They will obviously miss him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bashford said that it should not be forgotten that the Reds were the defending champions and had a lot of pride in defending their title. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are a championship side that knows how to win this tournament. And at home they\u2019ll have huge support,\u201d the backline coach said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the belief that we can do it, it\u2019s just about getting our act together and getting it right on the day,\u201d Bashford said. \u201cA lot of our key players have come back from injury and are all playing well. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that if we play well, we can beat any side in the tournament and I think we showed that in our games against the Stormers and Bulls,\u201d Bashford continued. \u201cThe real trick for us is replicating those performances. We have the players to do it, it\u2019s just getting ourselves organised. And if we get everything right and play the way we know we can play, we have a very good chance of progressing to the semi-finals.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Getty Images Reds chief playmaker, Quade Cooper, will not play against The Sharks because of a one-week suspension. The Sharks will have arrived in Brisbane yesterday to learn that the Reds\u2019 chief playmaker, Quade Cooper, will not play against them because of a one-week suspension handed out to him for a dangerous tackle on New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-12531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}