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We’re only a month in, and already a coach has been sacked and some teams have racked up frequent flyer miles in the tens of thousands.
Super Rugby Round 4 provides us with a full bracket of nine games, among them the first sighting of an Australian side in Tokyo, as well as the first sighting of an Argentinean side in Buenos Aires.
But it also presents as good a time as any to start passing judgements and ask a few tricky questions heading into what will be a weekend chock-full of rugby. And with no further ado…
Can Peter Grant really carry on with the Western Force’s expansive desires?
The Force head to Palmerston North to take on a Hurricanes side who have finally broken through for a win, but who are still overcoming the blow that is a season-ending injury for livewire back three dynamo, Nehe Milner-Skudder.
But the Force have an even bigger injury concern, with news this week that flyhalf Jono Lance is out for anywhere between a month and the rest of the season. Not because of the runaway leader for the 2016 falcon of the year, but with a torn pectoral muscle picked up last weekend against the Brumbies.
The blow means fellow recruit Peter Grant will start at flyhalf, with The West Australian reporting this week that Grant will be the 24th No.10 used by the Force in 11 seasons. Scrumhalf Ryan Louwrens comes onto the bench, and established number two scrumhalf Ian Prior will also play off the bench as cover for Grant.
Lance has been responsible for much of the Force’s new shape in attack this season, and has had a hand in at least two of the side’s four tries to date. His combination with Ben Taupai and Luke Morahan – which traces through the Queensland Reds and right back to when they all played together for the Australian Schoolboys from The Southport School – has been clear from the first minutes of the season.
Equally as clear has been how the Force tend to lose their attacking shape once Grant comes off the bench, which is something they can’t afford against the Canes. Obviously, Grant doesn’t have the benefit of schoolboy combinations, but the Force just cannot risk losing the improvements they have shown in the opening games.
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Surely the Highlanders couldn’t play the same card twice?
It was one of the great tactical shifts of 2015. The free-running, get-in-and-do-the-job-for-your-mates Highlanders abandoning their natural game as they landed in Sydney for a semi-final showdown with the Waratahs, to instead run out and completely outmuscle the Tahs at their own physical game.
And it worked a treat. The more they bashed and barged the Waratahs, the more mistakes they forced, and the more mistakes they forced, the more counter-attacking ball they won.
In 2016, both sides are averaging three tries per game, but the Waratahs are coming off the bye in Round 3 and have played just the two games. But they are experiencing set piece problems at the moment, and even if the Highlanders aren’t the biggest set piece team, they might still fancy their chances.
The Highlanders are the top tackling team in the competition, though, and there’s no reason why they won’t continue that for the replay this weekend in Sydney. And though they’ve only played the two games, most of the Waratahs’ key attacking numbers would still have them ranked mid-table if averaged out per game.
It will be interesting to see how both teams approach this game. The Waratahs will be gunning to prove they learnt the lessons from last June, while the Highlanders will be equally keen to prove they haven’t at all.
Tokyo: will limited fitness or an already heavy travel schedule win out?
A lot’s been made of the Sunwolves’ preparation for their debut season of Super Rugby – or lack thereof – and there’s little doubt that only the Cheetahs’ superior fitness won out last weekend in Singapore.
But consider this: already, the Melbourne Rebels have travelled the best part of 30,000 kilometres, and spent upwards of 40 hours in transit in just the first four weeks of the competition. Melbourne to Perth, onto to Pretoria via Johannesburg, back to Melbourne, and now to Tokyo. This doesn’t include any pre-season kilometres; this is just since the competition proper started in late February.
If the travel factor invariably kicks in in the second or third week of a tour for the South African tours – witness the Lions last week in Dunedin, compared to the week before in Hamilton – then you’d have to think there’s a bit of risk that the Rebels could hit the wall this week in Tokyo.
But will the Sunwolves have gained enough extra fitness in less than a week to take advantage?
Rebuild Rumble: stability of the Reds or variation of the Blues?
Two teams well committed to the urgent rebuild meet in Brisbane on Saturday night, but it’s a bit hard to know if the Reds or Blues are further advanced.
The Reds’ situation is well known. Three losses ranging from spirited to pitiful, and a coach sacked two weeks into a season.
The Blues didn’t just win in Round 1, they beat the reigning champions, but have somewhat fallen in a heap since.
The Reds, for all their problems, have been prepared to show the faith and changes have been largely forced; they made two starting XV changes from the first to second game, and then five again for Round 3.
Tana Umaga, on the other hand, is keeping all the Blues players on their toes, and getting a look at any and every new combination possible. He made six changes to his XV for Round 2, and then another nine last week. And it’s similar on the bench: six changes for Round 2, and just one bench player unchanged last week. Rene Ranger alone has worn jerseys 13, 23 and 14 so far in 2016.
How you get a handle on either team is anyone’s guess, by form or any other measure you’d care to use.
Do the Brumbies just need to procreate in Cape Town?
Yes, you read that subheading right, but no, I’m not suggesting the Brumbies only need to embark on some kind of erotically charged rampage across the southern cape to take the points this weekend.
No, the real story is the genuine concern coming out of South Africa about what the Stormers do – or more accurately, don’t do – with the ball.
“Stormers head coach Robbie Fleck’s biggest headache this week will be how to remedy an attack that is basically sterile,” Brendan Venter wrote this week, before labelling the Stormers’ attack in 2016 as predictable as the Bulls have always been.
Apparent inability to sire offspring aside, apart from Schalk Berger, no Stormer carried more than centres Juan de Jongh and John-Ben Kotze and fullback Cheslin Kolbe against the Sharks last weekend. Yet between the three of them, they managed just one clean break.
Flyhalf Kurt Coleman passed the ball 33 times and not once offloaded. It’s just shovelling the ball out to crash runners, which with David Pocock roaming around as the second man over the ball, would be a recipe for disaster if repeated.
Interestingly, the Stormers have spoken this week about forcing Pocock to make more tackles, following the All Blacks’ lead last year in trying to blunt his effectiveness. And that might work, but Scott Fardy and Jarrad Butler go alright over the ball, too.
Either way, sending more traffic Pocock’s way is not exactly solving the issue of a limp attack. And given they’re also knocking the ball on 15 times a game, the Stormers not only have an impotence issue, but they’re also guilty of premature dispossession once they do actually get going. They don’t need more embarrassing mess in attack this weekend.