LONG READ Matt Faessler: ‘To be involved in a home World Cup would be just next level’

Sitting third in the Super Rugby Pacific table with five wins from seven games, three points off the top, the Queensland Reds are clearly doing a lot right in 2025.

Defensively, they’ve conceded the second-fewest tries in the competition, and only two other teams have conceded less points than the Reds. Scratch the surface a little bit though, and you quickly find areas of improvement.

Their maul has been an effective attacking weapon this season, as it has been for several years now, and is a major reason why they remain the only side in Super Rugby yet to attempt a penalty goal.

But the Reds’ biggest issue in 2025 has been winning enough ball to service this effective maul. Their lineout success rate through eight rounds is the lowest of the 11 teams, losing one in every four of their own throws. And while the lineout drive has been effective when they do secure set-piece ball, they have still scored the fewest tries and overall points of the current top five.

These lineout issues are a major factor in why the Reds themselves accept that – despite the five and two record – they still have a lot of room for improvement.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Queensland hooker Matt Faessler agreed this week, following a 27-15 defeat at the table-topping Chiefs. “Table position is something that I think is a bit more important early on, just because this year it’s obviously only the top six that are going through.

“I think particularly the two games that we’ve lost, and even some of the games that we’ve won, we probably haven’t played our best. The game on the weekend, we hurt ourselves a few times around execution, and just didn’t really play to the style of footy that we wanted to play. That’s partially because the Chiefs are obviously a great team and a very good defensive outfit, but also just due to the weather and a few tactical things.

“Watching the game back, you do get a bit annoyed watching a few things that probably weren’t our best. It is one of those things where it’s great that we’re in the position that we’re in, but yeah, we’re definitely not satisfied with how we’re playing.”

The Chiefs are probably the benchmark of the competition and we got quite close to them. But they got the four points and we didn’t. And I think a lot of that was just due to us not playing the way we wanted to play.

With another hugely important game this Saturday in Brisbane, against an ACT Brumbies side they’ve enjoyed fierce battles with in recent years, Faessler knows the lessons learned from the Reds’ two losses this year (they also lost 43-19 at Crusaders last month) will be crucial reminders in another undoubtedly tough contest.

“There were just a few things tactically that we probably didn’t get right against the Crusaders, which sort of meant that they were playing in our end of the field quite a lot,” he said.

“And even when we got into the ‘A zone’, a few things like what passes to throw and not throw, those sorts of little mistakes that we sort of typically don’t make, we made in those games, which was a bit disappointing and probably similar on the weekend against the Chiefs. We were also a bit unlucky with a few disallowed tries or sort of decisions that didn’t go our way.

“I think the Chiefs are probably the benchmark of the competition and we got quite close to them. But they got the four points and we didn’t. And I think a lot of that was just due to us not playing the way we wanted to play.”

In a big year for Australian rugby with the British & Irish Lions tour in July and August, and a home Rugby World Cup on the horizon in 2027, Faessler’s signature on a new Rugby Australia and Queensland Reds deal last month was well received with a lot of players coming off contract.

After Harry Wilson signed a four-year extension in February with the simple explanation, “I’m the current Wallabies captain. Who am I to tell others to stay in Australia if I’m not signed, sealed and delivered myself?”, Faessler and several key forwards followed suit, including locks Nick Frost, Jeremy Williams and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto.

The prize signature for RA was Reds flanker Fraser McReight, with the genuinely world-class openside signing a three-year extension in March and reportedly spurning a hefty AUD$1.3 million-a-year offer from Japan in the process. It was a massive win for Australian rugby, but obviously for Queensland, too.

Going to first grade games in Toowoomba when I was a little kid, being a ball boy where they pay you a pie and a Gatorade at the end of the game

“We all sort of have a little pact that we’ll communicate with each other what it’s looking like we’re doing and where we’re heading and whatever, particularly some of the Reds boys that I’m close with,” Faessler explains.

“It’s awesome to have guys like Harry, Fraser and myself be able to stick around because we’re really close mates, we’ve known each other for a number of years.

“There is a bit of comfort knowing that some of your mates are staying around as well and I think that makes the decisions a little bit easier. All of us sticking around at Ballymore and potentially playing together for the Wallabies for the next few years is awesome.”

What Faessler’s mates don’t have, however, is a family connection with the Wallabies. Matt’s maternal grandfather was also a front-rower, a “colourful character” named Vince Bermingham, who was part of the first Wallabies team to win the Bledisloe Cup in the 1930s.

A famous story goes that Vince, a state boxing champion, once fended off an angry fan in country Queensland who stormed the away team’s dressing room wielding a tomahawk. Using his kit bag and a few sharp blows, Bermingham knocked the assailant out cold and diffused the situation in an instant. As it would do.

Bermingham died in 1983 and Faessler never met him, but certainly knows of his exploits. While his re-signing for two more seasons 90 years after his grandfather played for Australia isn’t exactly continuing the family business, it certainly continues a strong rugby family legacy.

“It definitely moulded my upbringing, mum’s side of the family and even dad as well,” Faessler says. “They’re huge rugby fanatics and I think my grandfather being involved in rugby and my uncles being involved in rugby from a young age definitely influenced how much I loved the game…going to first grade games in Toowoomba when I was a little kid, and being a ball boy where they pay you a pie and a Gatorade at the end of the game.

There’d be players that have a 15-year playing career that don’t get to play a World Cup at home. So even the possibility to be involved in one is crazy.

“It definitely helped in terms of the decision making. Now it’s about how I really want to help positively contribute here at the Reds and potentially higher honours as well.”

Honours don’t get much higher than facing the Lions or a RWC at home. Now that he’s back playing after losing a few weeks to injury, Faessler will be well and truly in the frame for both. And he admits the pull of 2027 was strong when it came to his decision to extend.

“There’d be players that have a 15-year playing career that don’t get to play a World Cup at home. So even the possibility to be involved in one is crazy. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like, to be honest.

“And the Lions series later this year will be crazy in terms of the crowd that’s travelling. I’ve heard something like 40,000 or 50,000 Lions supporters are making the trip to Australia. And you’d think it’d be tenfold of that for some of the big rugby nations that’ll be present at that 2027 World Cup.

“So even as a spectator, it’d be nuts. But to be involved in it as a player would be just next level.”

Now less than a hundred days from the start of the Lions Test series, Faessler confirms it is becoming harder to compartmentalise and push the thought of facing the best of the Home Nations to the back of the mind.

As a player, you sort of self-talk, you know, ‘if I don’t play well for the Reds and if the Reds don’t go well, then I’m probably no chance of playing against the Lions’

Whether he likes it or not, almost everything done on an Australian field this year and every conversation about it from now on is through the lens of ‘does he play against the Lions?’.

“Yeah, and that is tough,” he says. “Because obviously a lot of the outside noise, fans, journalists and stuff are really sort of thinking forward towards that. But as a player, you sort of self-talk, you know, ‘if I don’t play well for the Reds and if the Reds don’t go well, then I’m probably no chance of playing against the Lions’.

“So while sometimes you glance forward and think, ‘jeez, how cool would that be?’, you’ve just got to be where your feet are at that moment. Like for us now, we just have to get in and prepare well for the Brumbies and hopefully play well. That could be another tick in the box for potential selection.”

Head to head, the ACT side has enjoyed a 69% win rate across 45 games against Queensland, though that strong record is mainly on account of the Reds winning just four times in the nation’s capital.

Back in Brisbane, the record stands at nine wins to the Reds, 11 to the Brumbies and one draw; at Suncorp Stadium it’s eight wins apiece, plus the draw.

More recently, the Reds have won four of the six games played since rugby resumed after the Covid-enforced suspension in July 2020. The Brumbies have won the last two, however.

With the Reds in third and the Brumbies fifth, just four points behind, the contest looms as season-defining for both teams.

“Yeah, it could potentially be,” Faessler agrees. “Having played the Brumbies a fair few times over the last couple of years, to me, where they sit on the ladder does not come into my calculations whatsoever. They’re a class team, and I have no doubt they’ll be around when the final series kicks off.

“They’re a bit like us. They focus on set-piece and those basics really well. They’ve got Wallabies across the park, and I have no doubt this weekend’s going to be a cracker of a game.”