Solid platforms key to Super 14 finals

The Blues beating the Hurricanes 19-17 got things off on the wrong foot… well, for anyone other than the rabid optimists predicting a miracle scenario of four New Zealand semifinalists out of four.

The end of the match was exciting, with Hurricanes five-eighths Willie Ripia attempting three dropkicks, all of which could have won the game. But his team-mates couldn’t set him up close enough to the posts or with enough time to steady himself, and the three misses were no more than a mathematical irony considering how little the Hurricanes attempt scoring by that method.

Although close the Hurricanes were lucky to get even a bonus point for the loss, having been gifted most of their points with two tries in two minutes to Hosea Gear. He got the first after his backline had fumbled and somehow the seas parted for him, then his second immediately afterwards when Nick Evans fluffed the restart and was subsequently charged down.

The rest of the time the Blues were near flawless. Where did this sudden dose of intelligence come from? It wasn’t that pure hot-blooded enthusiasm for the underdog’s role which had gotten them their other two wins in this late run, it was smart, patient, downright austere rugby played in the right half of the field.

If they’d played this way when they should in 2008, they’d be hosting the other semi.

The following night the Crusaders went the other way intelligence-wise when they let the Highlanders do exactly what the Reds had done the week before, namely rattle them by any means possible… only this time with the Highlanders’ talent (not to mention their hunger, the bloodlust of the often-denied) meaning the result was ultimately unsalvageable.

The 26-14 victory meant plenty in the pride stakes to the eleventh-placed Highlanders. A prickly discomfort, meanwhile, accompanied any rationalisations about how little the loss meant to the Crusaders. Forget how far clear of the pack they were, this was an untidy performance on the eve of the semifinals, bringing memories of last year’s round 14 loss to the Chiefs flooding back.

The best performance of the weekend was by the Waratahs, who beat the Reds 18-11 in Brisbane to ensure hosting rights for a semifinal. They had to beat not only the fired-up Reds but also find a way to score points with the referee penalising the attacking team more often than not.

That’s a guess, which I have nothing other than my own anecdotal evidence to substantiate, but it seemed like he was sent out with a brief to kill the spectacle.

The Australian officials have hardly covered themselves in glory this year when it comes to enhancing the spectacle. With one semifinal between two New Zealand sides and the other featuring Australians versus South Africans, there is a mouthwatering possibility of not seeing an Australian referee again in the final fortnight.

The Sharks beat the Chiefs 47-25 in Durban to claim a semifinal place against the Waratahs in Sydney, but the game was a loose one with the home side being presented far too many easy points. We won’t dwell too long on that particular Australian referee… Stuart Dickinson was his usual unintelligible self, whose style was condusive to plenty of niggle and off-the-ball hijinks rather than free-running rugby, and you can judge for yourself who that benefited.

It didn’t matter after an hour or so. The Chiefs looked exhausted. Considering the ease with which they were allowed to score and the long upcoming flight to Sydney, this was hardly ideal semifinal preparation for the Sharks.

In other matches, the Force came back from 0-22 down to beat the Brumbies 29-22 in Perth, the Stormers held off the Lions 22-13 in Johannesburg and the Bulls thrashed the Cheetahs 60-20 in Bloemfontein, but the losses by the Crusaders and Hurricanes were the main discussion topics on Sunday.

They weren’t the only tight games of the competition that made me think twice about New Zealand rugby’s supposed health.

Two foreign sides who won in the final round will meet in one semifinal, and two New Zealand teams who lost will meet in the other. If I was spinning that into good news for New Zealand rugby, it wouldn’t be hard, but I’m not. If the teams with the most talent had won when they should have won, every game of the competition, then all four semifinalists would be from New Zealand.

The reason the Crusaders, Hurricanes, Blues and Chiefs are not the four semifinalists is because New Zealand rugby is low on intellectual capital. Take a look back at a list of crucial fixtures over the course of this season, the bad games (and I’ll leave the Highlanders’ early losing streak out of it) that team after team of New Zealanders contrived somehow to lose against sides with less talent.

Sharks 22 Blues 17
Chiefs 26 Stormers 35
Blues 17 Force 27
Hurricanes 13 Sharks 13
Highlanders 17 Sharks 19
Blues 11 Brumbies 16
Stormers 20 Hurricanes 12
Stormers 26 Highlanders 10
Force 22 Chiefs 21
Lions 33 Chiefs 27
Sharks 47 Chiefs 25

In all those matches… and you’re forgiven for not obsessing as I do and therefore maybe not remembering clearly the ones that don’t involve your team… what’s the common denominator? Agreed, there are a few there where the referee had a minor meltdown at some stage and also influenced the result, but mostly the common denominator is a team playing smart or even cunning rugby against a team who could or would not throttle back and think clearly in tight situations.

Okay, sure… and now I’m looking at the list again and I don’t see the Waratahs there. No, I’ll concede they deserve their semifinal place on the strength of their results against the other top teams.

Waratahs 20 Hurricanes 3
Waratahs 24 Brumbies 17
Waratahs 37 Blues 16
Force 12 Waratahs 17
Waratahs 25 Sharks 10
Stormers 13 Waratahs 13
Reds 11 Waratahs 18

Their defence was patient, resolute and largely unpunished. Their opportunities were taken and talent-wise, they’re not the poorest. Again, they won when they had to, with smart rugby.

The Stormers were rich in talent by South African standards. They often won while seeming to enjoy a referee’s favour, but then they also started the season with a few bum calls going against them in tight games and were edged out of fourth spot on points differential by the Hurricanes. Their fifth place finish at least reflects their ability to play to a pattern.

The Sharks, meanwhile, are there based almost solely on their ability to rattle the too-excitable teams.

The Hurricanes, on the other hand, appear to have scraped in based on their ability to keep scoring points once the easier games are decided.

Hurricanes 39 Chiefs 19
Brumbies 15 Hurricanes 33
Bulls 22 Hurricanes 50
Cheetahs 10 Hurricanes 38
Hurricanes 38 Lions 12

These were their flat-track bullying nights. The rest of the time it was dire stuff… losses to the Blues, Crusaders, Waratahs and Stormers, and a draw with the Sharks suggest they had problems with the tougher customers but no problem whatsoever with teams they could out-attitude. They and the Stormers had the same number of wins, losses, draws and bonus points. The points differential was all that separated them.

It worked in a New Zealand team’s favour in that instance, separating two teams that were otherwise equal, but in the case of the Blues it proved irrelevant. Where did points differential get the Blues? What did the big scores matter on the good nights, when on the bad nights they were losing games they should have won? Third on the points-scoring ledger to the Crusaders and Hurricanes, they wasted opportunities and their composure deserted them at vital junctures.

There is little argument about New Zealand having the largest talent pool and producing the highest number of exciting players to watch, but the 2008 Super 14 season shows clearly that winning tight games is not our strength.

The Crusaders seem to have that happy knack. When you dilute the Crusaders with other players to make the All Blacks, however, and those other players are of the exciting rather than the smart variety, it’s at least worth considering that the All Blacks might be collectively more talented than they are smart.

I don’t know… maybe I think about it too much. Maybe the All Blacks aren’t flat-track bullies, maybe they do historically win the ones that count and my perspective has been screwed up by the recent introduction of World Cups to the calendar. But I’m starting to see a pattern more and more clearly, where New Zealand teams win the easy ones but drop the ones that count and bitch about the officials afterwards.

I think it says something about our national character somehow, but if it’s good I’m damned if I can figure out what it is.

As a tragic, I often ascribe a wider meaning to rugby. Sometimes I even use rugby imagery to explain non-rugby events, I’ve got it so bad… but then that’s also because rugby is such a true contest that you can use it to put any competitive situation in context.

The US Presidential race going on right now is like a World Cup final. The Republicans have won the last two, but their awesome forward pack which functioned well at the set pieces is a little less convincing at second phase. The Democrats, meanwhile, came up with a clever game plan based around Hillary Clinton’s captaincy, mobile enough to diffuse the Republican war machine’s power up front.

Now we’ll see how it plays out. If the Democrats can keep beating them to the breakdown, maybe their quick black winger can score in the corner.

Then again, maybe not. Smart rugby is launched from a solid platform… and as the 2008 Super 14 has shown, is about winning the match not the early popularity contest.

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