“He is progressing fine which is pleasing ... Dane is a big part of his team,” Wessels said on Wednesday. “I felt it had an effect on the energy of our team, not just because it was Dane but because of the nature of the injury. He is one of our spiritual leaders. It’s just nice to know he is OK.” Lock Matt Philip will move to the bench and bustling forward Lopeti Timani will drop out of the side after playing big minutes to start the season in what Wessels called a “strategic” move. Hooker Jordan Uelese will miss a second week with injury but Wessels is confident he will be up for selection next game. The Rebels will also run with a bench of five forwards and two back giving them more bodies to refresh the forward pack in the second half.

The coach still believes his side needed a week of hard training and will benefit from it in the long run but Wessels also blamed his own “grumpy” demeanour for bringing down the team mood. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video “The focus has been on getting our energy back into the right place,” Wessels said. “One thing last week was I was a little bit grumpy and didn’t bring a great energy into the team and that rubbed off on the environment and also we put a bigger running load into the guys and we had a couple of extra scrum sessions. “In retrospect we were going pretty good in that game, up 20-3 then we fell off a cliff and a lot of that responsibly is on me where we got the structure of the week wrong.

“We needed to top off on some of that stuff and in the season we will benefit from having done it but it’s a pity we couldn’t close out the game.” Dane Haylett-Petty will miss at least a week with concussion. Credit:AAP Wessels said the Rebels (3-1 win-loss) had plenty to work on with their own play but they were wary of the Sharks (1-4 with a draw) and their lineouts in particular. The Waratahs game was played in 39-degree heat but the players have reported well back to training. “What has worked for us so far is the intensity that we play with and we didn’t bring that to the second half last week,” Wessels said.

“That’s what we want to improve. We haven’t had a huge amount of time to focus on the Sharks this week.” Wessels also explained why the team's forwards have been seen around different parts of AAMI Park when walking through their lineout strategies. “We got in trouble for running one of our lineout meetings in the corridor so we have had to move them outside,” Wessels said with a laugh. “We will have to talk to stadium management about it, we got into a little bit of strife for scaring some of the tennis ladies the other day.”