By Matt Findlay

To say there’s no love lost between Brothers and GPS would be an understatement, the two clubs’ rivalry is long, storied and fierce – in the simplest terms, they just don’t like each other much.

Brendan Gabbett is one with the unique experience of seeing both sides of that rivalry.

A club legend at Brothers, Gabbett returned to Crosby Park this year after two years coaching Jeeps, where he had the pleasure of winning an Australian Club Championship in 2019.

Even so, he’s not expecting to cop any flack from the Ashgrove crowd when the two sides add another chapter to an already-bulging Book of Feuds, to borrow the term from Russell Crowe’s South Sydney Rabbitohs.

“Nah, not at all,” Gabbett laughed.

“It’s funny really because I actually found Brothers and Jeeps to be quite similar, certainly in terms of the people involved, so I always liken this game to two brothers having a bit of a blue.

“It’s always a great day with a big crowd, there’s plenty of old rivalry and feeling in it so we’re all looking forward to it – it should be a really great day of rugby.”

Where the second-placed Gallopers go into QLD Premier Rugby’s ninth round off a hard-fought win over heavyweights Wests, Brothers stumbled in their last-up start against Bond University.

After four consecutive victories following the bye, Brothers fell to a 35-7 deficit against Bond and were forced to claw their way back, stealing two late tries to snatch a 43-all draw.

“You just can’t let a side in this competition get out to that kind of lead,” Gabbett said.

“We’ve done a really good review defensively and we’re confident we’ve got that covered, it’s going to be a really big focus for us this weekend.

“It’s not a matter of ‘fixing’ our defence because it wasn’t 15 guys having a bad day, it was just a couple of bad reads and bad decisions which cost everybody.”

Being able to eat into what could easily have been a demoralising deficit is some kind of silver lining but, as Gabbett said, every side in the Hospital Challenge Cup this year has points in it.

“Particularly Jeeps,” he fired.

“Every side is going to be able to score points but you have to be able to stop them too, so the quicker you get your D right on the day the longer you’re going to be in these games.

“You’d be pretty silly if you went to Jeeps and didn’t expect a physical, confrontational game too so we have to match up there.”

Gabbett has taken charge of a Brothers side that narrowly missed a post-season berth last year and sits in a similar position through eight rounds, they’re just one point outside the finals frame.

That, largely, can be put down to the back-to-back losses they suffered to open the 2021 season, before hitting their straps after the bye.

“We’re going alright, we did start badly but importantly we’re getting better and better every week so we want to keep that going on Saturday, we need to keep improving,” Gabbett said.

“Without losing in the last five weeks we’ve got some momentum and we want to build on that, this weekend is particularly important for us because we want to jump Wests and Bond (into third).

“Being in that top four is important because it means someone else has to come along and knock you out, but we’re also pretty confident we’re building to something special so we’d like to push into that four.”