Drua vs Reds: What makes Les Kiss' defence so different, no one's safe

The Drua have done it again, beating one of the top teams in Super Rugby Pacific in a physical confrontation in Suva.

Wallabies coach in waiting Les Kiss watched on anxiously as his side defended a four-point lead heading into the final minute, but just as the defensive stop that could have sealed the game was won, a handling error sent the ball loose.

Super-sub Isikeli Rabitu snaffled the ball and was driven over the line by his teammates for the win.

The Drua have work to do yet if they are to climb off the bottom of the table, but a proud win in front of home fans will come as a welcome moment of relief for first-year head coach Glen Jackson.

Here are some takeaways from the contest.

The youthful Drua

Outside of the front row, every forward who started this game for the Drua was 25 years old or younger. In the backline, everyone outside the halves was 25 or younger.

That’s a team with experience where needed and an abundance of youth to match, and while it’s been a poor season for the Fijians, the team’s potential is undeniable.

Former referee Jackson has his team operating as the third-most disciplined team in the comp, setting a high bar for these young talents coming into camp.

The Drua’s scum is still traditionally strong and they love playing with the ball in hand, although accuracy has been lacking – just 69 per cent of the Drua’s offloads are collected cleanly, the second-worst rate in the comp.

It has all the hallmarks of a young, energetic team lacking execution. The question will be, can the Drua keep their talent long enough for the club to realise their potential? Or, will they be lured north, like so many before them.

Why Les Kiss’s defence is so different

The Queensland Reds have the most efficient tackle success rate in Super Rugby Pacific, and are second only to Glasgow, by just 0.2 per cent, when you include the whole of European and South African competition, too.

Glasgow are second amongst those competitions when it comes to the percentage of tackles made above the hips, opting to go for the upper body 79.1 per cent of the time.

Far and away the team most likely to target the upper body, though, are the Reds, tackling above the hips 86.2 per cent of the time.

This tactic, when executed well, is a great antidote to the Fijian Drua’s damaging running game, specifically for nullifying their offloads. The Drua are comfortably the most efficient team across Super Rugby and Europe/South Africa when it comes to converting offloads into linebreaks – when they stick.

The Drua managed just two offloads per half on Saturday afternoon, with their linebreaks instead coming from out-and-out athleticism in one-on-one situations. The hosts made 11 line breaks in the contest, four above their competition-leading season average.

The individual tackling was not up to the task of containing the explosive Drua on the day, but is this a tactic that we could see bring an edge to the Wallabies’ defence in 2026? Time will tell.

The rise of the 6-2 bench split

The Fijian Drua closed this game out in large part thanks to their physicality up front, with six forward reinforcements filtering into the game early in the second half.

The hard-hitting carry game was led by rookie openside flanker Isoa Tuwai, but those duties were pretty evenly spread across the park for the Drua, who had 14 players carry more than five times. Nine players carried for more than 30 metres.

Glen Jackson has so very many talented runners to go to, and whether by design or not, the Drua removed any focal point from the equation for their opponents.

The extra forward on the bench contributed to this, with bruising No. 8 Elia Canakaivata one of the impact players to make his presence felt late in the piece.

No one’s safe

When the last-placed team in the competition can dish out losses to heavyweights like the Reds and Chiefs, there really is no room for complacency in Super Rugby Pacific.

While in recent seasons, the big hitters of the competition have only been truly tested periodically and forced to get up for certain contests, this season, new elements have come into play that challenge teams further.

Consistency has proven challenging for all teams in 2025, and a lack of consistency is being punished far more than in recent memory.

Three teams finished 16 rounds of action with just two losses to their names in 2024, but in 2025, the Crusaders remain the only team with two in the loss column after 12 rounds of action.

This race is far from run.