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SPIRO: Highlanders show Wallabies how to win the unwinnable

5th July, 2015
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The Highlanders' Aaron Smith. (AAP Image/ SNPA, Ross Setford)
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5th July, 2015
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“Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat, For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.”

You could not fault the 2015 Super Rugby final pre-match discussion on Fox Sports – the panel covered all the angles.

There were insightful interview with the key players, Beauden Barrett talking about “role clarity” and Lima Sopoaga revealing that assistant coach Tony Brown had told the Highlanders to “enjoy themselves”, that “rugby is just a game”, and that “people out there would love to be doing what we are doing”.

The Highlanders were rated as a game, gutsy side that had over-achieved in reaching the final. There were no All Blacks in their pack and although the two Smiths, Aaron and Ben, are mighty players and Malakai Fekitoa is a forceful centre, the Hurricanes were the class side in the tournament and deserved favouritism.

Moreover, the home side, in this case the Hurricanes, had won 15 out of 19 finals. Only one team not ranked one or two had won a Super Rugby final, and the Highlanders were ranked four.

Admittedly, this fourth ranking was a statistical anomaly, because the Highlanders were actually second on the pool-round table, behind the Hurricanes. But because of the requirement that each conference have the first three places, with its teams ranked in order of their points, the Highlanders, second on points, were relegated to fourth place in the finals

So, in fact, if we had really thought all this through, we should have ranked the Highlanders as the second-placed team in the tournament. But this is hindsight. Journalists are prophets of the past. We are invariably wise after the event.

So I found myself in total agreement with Phil Kearns and Rod Kafer as they said: in their hearts they wanted the underdog Highlanders to win, but there was no way this was going to happen.

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You got this same sense about the inevitability of the outcome as surging chants of, “Hurricanes! Hurricanes! Hurricanes!” swept the packed stands.

The early exchanges, including several minutes of length-of-the-field play from both sides, had the crowd in a fever pitch of excitement, anxiety and anticipation.

“And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped — ‘That ain’t my style,’ said Casey. ‘Strike one,’ the umpire said.”

I always like to note whether teams change their systems slightly to disconcert their opponents at the beginning of a game.

There is always the possibility, though, that when you do this you might discard the best of your plays, the plays that have taken you into the finals, and weaken your initial challenge.

Throughout the season, the Highlanders have used wingers Waisake Naholo (who came out on top of Julian Savea in their personal contest) and Patrick Osborne as barging runners across the advantage line from the lineouts.

So at the first lineout, there was Osborne ready to take the ball and smash forward.

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He did take the ball. The Hurricanes defenders, alert to the tactic, rushed from all angles towards him to cut down his momentum. He deftly passed the ball on. Out in the middle of the field, flanker Elliot Dixon charged into a hole.

The Highlanders put pressure on the Hurricanes, driving the ball forward with slick, short passing. They gained a penalty which Sopoaga converted.

Later on in the match, Osborne and Naholo started to take the ball up aggressively as the first receivers. But the doubt in the minds of the Hurricanes defenders had been planted about just where the thrust of the attack was going to come from.

Within minutes of the start of the match, the Highlanders had taken the lead, one that was never headed off.

When the Hurricanes, inevitably, hit their stride, they pounded away at the Highlanders try line. They smashed away with one-off hit-ups. The power out wide of Savea was not used. It was close-quarter stuff. A scrum was taken when a 5-metre lineout might have been the best option. The scrum went down and the Highlanders won a relieving penalty.

In between a concerted assault on the Highlanders try line, Sopoaga had won and converted a long-range penalty for the visitors. With a later conversion, although he missed with a drop goal attempt, Sopoaga had kicked two penalties and a conversion from three formal shots a goal.

Barrett missed two penalties and later a conversion in the first half. Those eight points were the difference in the final outcome of the match.

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The Hurricanes compounded their problems (admittedly this is with hindsight) by turning down a penalty shot for further pressure. Finally, just before halftime, the Hurricanes worked Savea into a barging burst near the Highlanders try line.

Ma’a Nonu took up Savea’s position on the wing and smashed across for the try. The Hurricanes, down 6-5 were finally in a position to take control of the match.

“With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone; He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew; But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, ‘Strike two.'”

It is one of the cliches of rugby that the minutes before halftime, are the ‘championship minutes’.

The Hurricanes failed to ram home the psychological advantage they had gained through their late try. They got ahead of themselves and instead of applying pressure on the Highlanders, they applied pressure on themselves by failing to get out of their half and into a scoring zone.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Elliot Dixon, an almost scrawny epitome of the cranky South Island farmer-type of loose forward, seized his moment. From just outside the Hurricanes 22 he ran past and through four Hurricanes defenders, all knees, elbows, hard bones, and in the tackle of a couple of defenders planted the ball over the try line, touching a boot on the way down.

This was the decisive play. With a sideline conversion, the Highlanders were 13-5 in front and had the momentum going into the second half.

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There was another aspect to this try, too, that was important in the tactical and psychological battle that finals rugby has become.

Against the Brumbies, in the semi-final, the Hurricanes had terrorised the defence on the edges with Ardie Savea’s smashing runs. But Ardie Savea was out injured, and the Hurricanes did not replace him with someone capable of doing the same thing.

This is rather like the Waratahs trying to play their ensemble, ball-in-hand game against the Highlanders in the semi-final without their second playmaker, Kurtley Beale.

The Highlanders, though, adopted the Ardie Savea tactic by playing Dixon as their tearaway destroyer out wide. Dixon scored a try and was gave the last pass to put Naholo in for his try, the Highlanders second, and decisive try of the match.

At halftime, the Hurricanes had had most of the possession, most of the field position, and had run 482 metres to the Highlanders’ 277.

Breaks were made, break-outs were made. But the Hurricanes could not get the decisive run that Ardie Savea could have, perhaps, achieved.

It was the Highlanders’ Dixon, instead, who made the decisive strikes.

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“The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate: He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate. And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.”

With the score line Highlanders 18-11 Hurricanes, and with about 20 minutes left to play, the Hurricanes launched a series of plays near the visitor’s try line. The ball was worked out past the mauls and through the hands before Brad Shields made the final pass to Julian Savea.

Let’s stop the tape here. 99 times out of 100 Julian Savea would score in this situation. He was metres in from touch, with a clear run to the try line. The defence, in the form of his nemesis Naholo, was coming across but was really too far away. The pass was slightly high and slightly behind his grasping hands.

The reason for this was because Savea had pushed up too quickly. He had not held his depth, as he invariably does. Why? Pressure from the Highlanders, not just at this moment but throughout the match. Naholo had chased and caught Savea every time he threatened to break out. Now he was coming across once again to make the tackle.

Still, despite all this, the pass would have been caught by Savea in a normal situation. He hitch-kicked into taking the pass, rushing his preparation to receive it.

In those seconds, the pressure mounted on the Hurricanes throughout the match concertinaed into a cast-iron block. It was too heavy for Savea to carry. He put out hard, snatchy hands to grab the ball and it bounced out of his grasp.

“Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.”

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Down in the deep south of New Zealand, in cold Dunedin and the frost-covered fields of the Otago rolling farmlands, there is the warmth, the glow that comes from achieving the unwinnable win. The band will be playing in the Octagon on Monday. Children and grown-ups will be shouting and laughing.

You could see what the win meant from the despondent reaction of the home crowd to the raucous hakas from the small band of true believers who tempted the fates by attending the match to watch the unlikely triumph of their side.

There is no joy in Wellington.

In a bigger context, the Highlanders’ victory reinforced the hard truth about finals rugby. It is all about the better team, in terms of preparation and performance, on the day. The past means nothing. It is another country. The actual match is the territory that has to be conquered. Real time, not history, is what matters.

The other crucial point about finals rugby – and it is a lesson that the Wallabies need to understand – is that teams can grow during a finals series. They can become, as the 1995 Springboks and 1991 Wallabies did in their Rugby World Cup triumphs, better and more coherent teams, as they learn and play their way towards the climax of winning the grand final.

The Highlanders had to beat the Chiefs, admittedly at Dunedin, to win their qualifying final.

Then they had to travel to Sydney to defeat the Waratahs, a daunting prospect for any team.

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Having achieved that, the Highlanders had to play the Hurricanes, rated one of the best Super Rugby sides in recent years, in a final played at Wellington.

These were three challenges that when met, tempered the Highlanders’ self-belief into a steely resolve.

With each of these three victories the Highlanders improved into a much better side than the sum of their players’ talents. The input of the coaches was crucial, as was the grittiness of the players to win two unwinnable away matches.

It is a cliche but it is true: a champion team can defeat a team of champions. This Super Rugby final, though, was actually a contest between two champion teams. The Hurricanes played well enough, as a team and individually, to win – or at least to have won if the Highlanders had not been a better champion team, on the day.

The lesson that needs to be taken from all this by, say, the Wallabies is that when you are facing the unwinnable match, you must go out and play to win it. Don’t try not to lose. Don’t make it hard for yourself by not taking your chances when they come.

Don’t be arrogant like Casey and give away two strikes in the presumption that you’ll hit the last pitch out of the ground. If the first pitch is right to hit, belt it. Just as the Highlanders did in their memorable triumph in the 2015 Super Rugby grand final.

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