Super 14: time to toughen up

I’ve eaten a lot of humble pie on New Zealand’s behalf over the years, and a particularly heavy guts-full recently since the humiliation at Cardiff.

No matter how badly I felt cheated after such losses, I would always rather take it on the chin and not whine about it than run the risk of arrogance.

If, however, it’s arrogant to suggest that two New Zealand Super 14 teams playing each other with a New Zealand referee represents an entertainment pinnacle in rugby, then I’m guilty.

I love test matches for different reasons… that’s tribalism at its best, fifteen countrymen versus sixteen foreigners, but two teams packed with All Blacks playing each other is different.

My many years covering provincial rugby as impartially as possible means I identify with them all on certain levels, so with New Zealand derbies in Super 14 I can just sit back and enjoy the kung fu.

I guess the same thing works in reverse for the Heineken Cup.

With twice the usual number of Brits playing, the rugby gets twice as boring, which is why they need to poach so many New Zealanders… even the ones who are past it (it’s like what Carmen said to Fast Eddie in The Colour of Money, “if you’re too old to cut the mustard, you can always lick the john”).

The Super 14 is supposed to be an exciting brand of rugby, but you still have to wade through Transvaalers and Queenslanders to reach the good bits. When you’ve finished wading, though, you arrive at fixtures like the one which began round seven on Friday night, a full bore classic between the Hurricanes and Crusaders.

This began fast and only got faster, with no quarter given. Referee Steve Walsh is about the only referee quick enough to keep abreast of the torrid pace and still have oxygen spare to make sensible rulings, and even he was struggling at times.

But an interesting dynamic emerged. The Hurricanes and Crusaders, two of the competition’s most skillful teams, displayed a clever understanding of the current state of play.

While the new laws punish breakdown infringements only slightly more leniently than before, teams will sometimes perceive that the referee is also in a lenient mood.

If they back themselves defensively they will be prepared to give away a lot freekicks to maintain territorial advantage if they can’t actually steal possession.

Crusaders captain Richie McCaw is a past master at this, and if Walsh had been in a more pedantic mood he could have binned the flanker early in the match for repeatedly slowing down Hurricanes ball.

He didn’t, and McCaw trod a fine line all match.

Hooker Corey Flynn burrowed over to begin the Crusaders scoring just two minutes into the match, and number eight Mose Tuiali’i put a kick through the Hurricanes defence for the Crusaders’ second try. Rodney So’oialo was the only Hurricane covering, and the cruel bounce left him grabbing air as lock Ali Williams scored.

So’oialo had words with his team-mates under the posts as Dan Carter slotted the conversion. More commitment was needed. The Hurricanes had failed to score with the bulk of possession, whereas the Crusaders could turn their defence into attack more quickly than the home team could adjust.

The score was 20-3, with Jerry Collins lucky not to be yellow-carded for a high tackle, before So’oialo’s exhortation to his troops sank in.

When it did, the change in the Hurricanes was obvious. They played more conservatively, and the next half hour’s rugby was as good a blueprint for how to outscore the Crusaders as anyone is ever likely to come up with. Swarm the pill, support the ball carrier, and mark up on the blind in case there’s a turnover.

The worm slowly turned. The Hurricanes maintained their pressure, and camped for long periods in the Crusaders’ danger zone.

Andrew Hore smashed over but was called back because a Crusader tackler had been impeded. They kept the squeeze on, however, and it wasn’t long before Tuiali’i was given the card that McCaw had escaped earlier. Hore smashed over again, and this time wasn’t called back.

At 20-13 the match was in the balance. If the Crusaders didn’t have their wits about them they might have found the Hurricanes surge irresistible, but they’ve seen late-game charges before, and in many situations including sudden death. Holding on to a seven-point lead in Wellington? No problem.

Whereas until this point they had been prepared to cunningly infringe and drive up the penalty count, now they simply went into hardcore tackling mode, backing themselves to shut down one of the competition’s most lethal attacking sides with water-tight fifteen-man defence.

The last few minutes was defensive perfection as they folded the Hurricanes backwards onto their own line.

At risk of losing the one bonus point they had already earned when the hooter sounded, replacement Hurricanes halfback Alby Mathewson kicked the ball dead from his own goal line instead of desperately trying one last time for a length-of-the-field miracle… a smart move, probably.

Another New Zealand derby was scheduled for the following evening, in Hamilton where the Chiefs were hosting the Highlanders. For some reason this fixture was awarded an Australian referee, Stuart Dickinson no less, but even he couldn’t prevent the free-spirited try-fest that unfolded.

Both teams scored bonus points, lock Hoani MacDonald scoring two tries for the Highlanders and Chiefs wing Lelia Masaga lighting up the park with two more of the scorching variety he’s quickly becoming famous for.

The breakdowns weren’t as congested as the previous evening’s match, but the Hurricanes-Crusaders contest featured five All Blacks out of six loose forwards, with top four positions on the line.

The Chiefs and Highlanders were more intent on creating some kind of momentum with which to finish their seasons, so they played with far more abandon.

The drop in intensity was as obvious as the drop in defensive skills. Both coaches expected their loosies to contest at the tackle, but with more tackles being missed there were scoring opportunities all over the place for swift backs inclined to counter-attack.

The vicious contest for possession in the Crusaders-Hurricanes match had resulted in many breakdown stalemates, for which the new punishment is a freekick (balanced by a chance for the offending side to reform defensively).

In the Chiefs-Highlanders match, actual turnovers were effected more frequently at the less congested tackle areas. It made for a fascinating contrast.

To conclude that more missed tackles make for higher scoring matches is no intuitive stretch. Nor would it tax the cognitive powers of any but the most optimistic Highlanders fan to conclude that the Chiefs with their strike power across the park would prevail in such an open game.

The Highlanders’ star winger Fetu Vainikolo scored a beauty, and the Highlanders were briefly within range, but they were swimming against the tide with their inability to hold onto possession.

The Chiefs put them away 39-24. Flanker Liam Messam, halfback Brendon Leonard, first five Stephen Donald and fullback Mils Muliaina all joined Masaga on the scoreboard with fine running tries, confining the Highlanders to bottom of the table with their sixth straight loss.

The Blues took on the Bulls at Eden Park immediately afterwards. This was supposed to be a cake-walk for the Blues, with their visitors already in the middle of a long losing streak.

But somewhere in between an untidy Blues lineout and the Bulls being prepared to concede a steady stream of ball-slowing infringements, this game got close.

And then there was Bryan Habana. In previous weeks, watching the Bulls go from dull to awful, I doubted that the flying winger could make much difference at all when he returned from injury.

Surely no single player could affect a side’s ability to perform so profoundly. But he did, and with every swerving yard he made the Bulls’ confidence grew.

After captains Troy Flavell and Wikus van Heerden had exchanged tries, the Blues were lucky to have a 17-7 lead when Keven Mealamu scored in the corner. A path had been cleared for him by Isaia Toeava, and the officials had missed it completely.

For some reason (maybe bad officiating made them feel at home) the Bulls responded well. Every time Habana put them back on the front foot, the Afrikaaner forwards compounded their interest.

Van Heerden scored his second as the massive Bulls pack drove over, and hooker Derick Kuun finished off a jinking Habana run that had the Blues defence in disarray. At 21-20, the visitors had the lead for the first time.

Then up stepped Nick Evans. His sideline conversions and long-range penalties had kept the Blues in touch, and from long range he banged over a match-winning droppie with the sort of calm that would have had Hugo Porta whistling in appreciation.

It kept the Blues in the top four, with two South Island teams, three Australian teams and a bye left for them to face before the semifinals.

In other games, the Sharks stayed unbeaten with a 22-10 win over the Reds in Durban, the Stormers beat the Force 32-16 in Perth and the Waratahs hung tough against the Cheetahs, winning 23-19 in Sydney. The Brumbies and Lions had a bye.

With the business half of the competition upon us it seems that the experimental laws are now well bedded in, but the game will remain at a crossroads until those laws are ratified.

The Super 14 is the shop window for the new game.

It is vital that the spectacle remains an improved one down here, but leniencies are being exploited and the spectacle will be at risk as long as referees keep trotting out their well-worn excuses about “players taking responsibility”.

Coaches and players, at the top level of the world’s only meaningful sport in which possession is genuinely contested, will by definition play to the very edge of the law.

We’ve had our orientation, our ELVs 101. If the referees now get ruthless about ball-killing, we can look forward to a great season crescendo.

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