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Moving Day. Like the third round of a golf Major, I expected the penultimate round of this year’s Super 14 to be the one in which the main contenders emerged from the pack. However, as this season has done for its entirety, the round threw out several unexpected results over the weekend.
And for the umpteenth week in a row now, we have six and maybe even seven teams still within striking distance of the semi-finals.
With the top six teams all playing each other in the final round this weekend, the only certainty is that the Bulls will finish first. After that is anyone’s guess.
The Bulls would be thanking their lucky stars for getting away with their win against a resurgent Crusaders, and can probably thank the referee not spotting Fourie du Preez’s side-window ruck entry in the lead-up to flying winger Francois Hougaard’s first try, as much as they can the decision that awarded them the 82nd-minute match winner.
The Crusaders did what plenty of other teams have tried to do against the Bulls in Pretoria, and ran their forwards all around the park in the first half.
The sideline-to-sideline plan seemed to work a treat, too, with the Crusaders laying on the first three tries of the game.
From there on though, the Bulls did what the Bulls do best, and a combination of championship patience and fly-half Morne Steyn’s 25 points allowed the Bulls to get to a position for that last-gasp assault on the try line.
The Bulls have yet again secured a home semi, and indeed a home Final should they progress, but therein lies one possible chink in their seemingly impregnable armour.
Preparations for the football World Cup in South Africa (starting in June) mean their home fortress Loftus Versfeld is now out of action, and the Bulls will move their finals matches to Soweto, in a first for South African rugby. It could be an inspiration for the Bulls, or the ray of hope their semi-final opponents cling to.
The Crusaders, on the other hand, showed more than enough in the loss to the Bulls to prove that they are far from finished in this year’s competition.
Despite returning from Western Australia and South Africa with three losses, and slipping to sixth in the process, the seven-time champions returned to something near their best against the Bulls.
And they needed to. After a lacklustre loss to the Western Force, and then an old-fashioned shellacking from the Stormers in Cape Town, there were plenty of pundits ready to draw the season-ending line through them.
All their big guns stood up against the Bulls though, and Dan Carter in particular had one of his better games for 2010. In the end, they allowed the Bulls back into the match, but the signs of vast improvement were already firmly embedded.
Only the Queensland Reds have won returning home from South Africa this season, and there is little question the Crusaders are good enough to do it as well, when they take on the Brumbies in Christchurch on Friday night.
It would be brave tipster (or more likely, a Brumbies supporter) to go against them.
The NSW Waratahs and ACT Brumbies re-lit the fuse of expectation for Australian rugby fans, with both local sides unleashing impressive displays to record bonus-point wins.
While the Waratahs played arguably their best rugby in 2010 to put away the under strength Chiefs, the Brumbies had to show a good deal of patience in theirs, taking until the 77th minute to score the vital fourth try.
For the Brumbies, there’s no doubt the return of George Smith is his farewell Canberra Stadium appearance was a major inspiration.
The top shelf players stood up here too, with Rocky Elsom, Steven Moore and Adam Ashley-Cooper all having barnstorming games to ensure the Brumbies now control their own destiny.
Just as Kurtley Beale was a revelation for the Waratahs, young playmaker Matt Toomua was the Brumbies’ best. Toomua, in his first game back since losing an argument with a goal post a few weeks ago, showed a calm head and poise well beyond his years, and has surely now proven he’s the Brumbies first-choice No.10.
His options in attack were first rate, he ran to the line with great effect, and most importantly, he provided space and time for Matt Giteau to run in the midfield.
It seems the raps we first heard on Toomua as a 17 year-old are starting to bear fruit.
Berrick Barnes once again led the way for NSW in their win, and has struck something of a purple patch of form since the self-confessed worst game of his life back in March.
No doubt, Wallaby coaching stuff are suitably impressed, too.
Ben Mowen had another cracking game at Number 8 as well, and would now have to be as close to an Australian jumper as he’s ever been.
Another young player to shine and ensure the competition knows about him was Hurricanes flyhalf Aaron Cruden. The Hurricanes have rocketed from mid-table to the brink of finals football over the last month, and it’s largely been a result of Cruden starting in the No.10 for the Wellington side.
Against the Reds, Cruden was outstanding in attack, and his sleight of hand that led to winger Hosea Gear’s third try was something opposite number Quade Cooper would have been proud of.
The Hurricanes showed in the second half why they will be a handful, should they make the semis, and proved to be too patient for a Reds team that became increasingly desperate as the game got away from them.
In the end, they were out-thought by a Hurricanes side that was happy to wait for the opportunities to present themselves.
The Hurricanes now fly to Sydney to take on the Waratahs, in a game that will essentially decide who finishes third.
While the Reds are not completely out of contention either, they will need to beat the Highlanders by the distance between Brisbane and Dunedin just to make up the points differential.
The Stormers, despite the shock loss to the Sharks in Durban, would still seem to be sitting in the box seat for second place on the table, when they take on the Bulls at home in Cape Town in the last game of the regular season.
Australian rugby fans (if I’m allowed to generalise) probably don’t pay too much attention to the South African derbies usually, but given the implications the result of this game could have on the final table, it may well get unusually high ratings. And yes, I’ll probably be one of them.
So, with one week to go, seven teams with varying degrees of hope for finals rugby, and with the top six all ready to take points off each other, can we be so bold to predict the final four?
Well no, I can’t, not with the way my tipping’s gone downhill in recent weeks.
But I am looking forward to this last-ever round of Super 14 rugby, for it’s likely to be as good a finish to a regular season as I can recall.
And good luck with your tips.