John Bryant played three Super Rugby Pacific games in 2026. He played three more in Italy. The Queensland Reds have re-signed the back-rower through 2027.
On Saturday he starts against the Western Force at Ballymore, in the opening match of Super Rugby AUS. Australia built that competition for players exactly like him. Fix, or admission? Have your say in the comments.
Three games in Super Rugby Pacific, three in Italy
Bryant is 23, a flanker who covers No.8. The Reds count him as their 1,385th player and credit him with 31 appearances across three years, starting with a debut against the Saitama Panasonic Wild Knights in 2023.
Three of those appearances came in Super Rugby Pacific this season.
“I played only three games in Super Rugby Pacific this year but I feel I am progressing with my game…”
Before that he was in Treviso. Bryant was one of four Reds sent to Benetton under a player-loan partnership between the two clubs.
He came home with three appearances in the United Rugby Championship, against Scottish, Irish and South African clubs.
Add it up. Six competitive games at senior level across roughly twelve months, in two hemispheres, for a forward his club rates highly enough to tie down for another season.
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The awkward part is that 2026 was a good Reds year. They won four straight through March and sat third after beating the Fijian Drua in Lautoka, Queensland’s first win in Fiji, with Bryant playing the full 80 at flanker. The better the side got, the harder the jersey became.
Super Rugby AUS is the fix, and it is also the admission
The competition kicks off at Ballymore at 1:30pm AEST on Saturday, Reds against Force. Four teams, the two above plus the Brumbies and Waratahs, play a three-round round robin, and the top two meet in a grand final on 3 October. It is only the second edition.
The purpose is not subtle. Australia has four Super Rugby Pacific franchises and nowhere near enough top-level minutes to grow the forwards underneath its Test pack.
New Zealand solves that with the NPC. South Africa solves it with the Currie Cup. Australia scrapped the NRC and has spent the years since building a replacement three weeks long.
“There is nothing that helps you more than the practice and reps in high-level games.”
Bryant, in the same release, on facing Tonga, Wales, the Wild Knights and the British & Irish Lions in Reds colours
That is what a shortage sounds like from the inside. And it is the same shortage Eddie Jones ties the whole thing back to one scoreboard over.
The lock stuck behind two Test locks
Charlie Brosnan is the second name on the release and the clearer case. He is 21, a 197cm country kid from Thallon who plays his club rugby for Brothers, winners of this year’s Sumo Energy Hospital Cup final at Ballymore.
His Reds record reads three appearances. The first came in 2025 against Tonga in Nuku’alofa, which was not a Super Rugby Pacific match either.
Brosnan knows exactly why the queue is long.
“Lukhan (Salakaia-Loto) and Josh (Canham) are both world-class Test locks.”
Charlie Brosnan, in the Reds Media Unit
Salakaia-Loto was on 47 Wallabies caps as of 8 September 2026. Canham has played Test rugby in the Australia second row. A 21-year-old behind that pair is not getting Super Rugby Pacific rugby in any realistic season, which leaves him three weeks in September and a tour in November.
They have signed for a coach who does not start until 2027
The release soft-pedals the next bit. Both contracts run to the end of 2027, and 2027 is the first year of the coach who has not taken a Reds session in anger yet, Vern Cotter, on a two-year deal replacing Les Kiss after his move to the Wallabies.
Cotter is already at Ballymore. Bryant says he is looking forward to what the new coach brings to the forwards.
So the timing matters. Bryant and Brosnan are the first two players contracted into a new coaching era, signed before that coach has taken charge of a single Super Rugby Pacific match, with September serving as the live assessment.
“I see him as being very active in defence, someone who carries well and has aggression to his game.”
Vern Cotter on Bryant, in the Reds release
Cotter called both men hard workers and singled out Brosnan’s willingness to get off the deck and go again. Cotter is already picking his pack.
The Benetton loan gave him something no NPC player will ever get
The straight answer is this. Thirty-one senior appearances at 23 is not a career going nowhere, and plenty of Australian back-rowers that age have a handful. The Benetton loan handed Bryant European rugby no NPC or Currie Cup player will ever be offered.
A Queensland forward can face Tonga, the Lions, a Japanese club side, an Italian URC side and three Australian franchises inside a calendar year. No rival system offers that.
The counter is shorter. Volume is not jeopardy. Six competitive games spread across two hemispheres and four competitions does not build what a Test forward needs most, which is week-on-week selection pressure in a league that punishes him.
Saturday is the first read on both of them
Saturday is the first read. Bryant starts in the back row, Brosnan at lock, against a Force side that has grown teeth.
Three rounds follow, then the grand final on 3 October, then the tour of Japan and Italy. A return to Treviso in November will tell Bryant more about himself than three games of Super Rugby Pacific did.
Frequently asked
When does Super Rugby AUS 2026 start and finish?
The second season of Super Rugby AUS begins on Saturday 12 September 2026, with the Queensland Reds hosting the Western Force at Ballymore Stadium at 1:30pm AEST. The grand final is on 3 October.
Who are John Bryant and Charlie Brosnan?
Both are Buildcorp Reds Academy graduates who re-signed with Queensland through 2027 on 9 September 2026. Bryant is a 23-year-old flanker and No.8 with 31 Reds appearances since his 2023 debut. Brosnan is a 21-year-old lock with three Reds appearances since debuting against Tonga in 2025.
Why did John Bryant play for Benetton?
Queensland and Benetton run a player-loan partnership that sends Reds players to Italy on secondment. Bryant spent roughly three months there in late 2025 and made three United Rugby Championship appearances against South African, Scottish and Irish opposition. The Reds tour Italy in November 2026 and will face Benetton in Treviso.
Who is the Queensland Reds coach in 2027?
Vern Cotter takes charge of the Reds from 2027 on a two-year deal, succeeding Les Kiss, who left Ballymore to become Wallabies head coach. Cotter has previously won trophies with the Blues in Super Rugby Pacific and Clermont in the Top 14, and is already working with the Queensland squad.
Your turn
If a 23-year-old back-rower gets three Super Rugby Pacific games in a season his club finishes strongly, is Super Rugby AUS fixing Australia’s depth problem or just hiding it? Would you rather see Bryant play three weeks in September or six months in the URC?
Read next: the coach walking back into a Super Rugby AUS side after years away · why Rugby Australia chose stability over panic when the pressure was worst · the back-row call that should have been made in Mendoza
