- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Around the 60th minute of their home match against the Western Force, the Waratahs ground-out 30 phases of one-up drives. In the end, thank goodness, the Waratahs’ hooker John Ulugia plunged across the line for a try.
Admittedly, this match, and all the others for the rest of the Super Rugby tournament, are must-win contests for the Waratahs. The Waratahs have adopted the tactics to bore their oppositions into defeat. It is also boring their supporters with 17,532 only turning up for the match at the SFS.
The rugby league equivalent of this system was the WazzaBall tactics created by Warren Ryan to take the Canterbury Bulldogs to a premiership victory.
The joke in rugby league circles at the time is that the Bulldogs’ favoured scoreline was a 1 – 0 win. The Waratahs did at least score two tries. One of them came after the eternity of phase play drives, and the second was a well-played fluke try by Ryan Cross who caught a rebound from a posted penalty attempt.
The Waratahs had a backline with five Wallabies in it. Yet they refused to allow the backs the chance to make attacks.
Almost invariably, even when they got turnovers, the backs kicked away the ball. In all, the Waratahs kicked 44 times. This amounted to virtually all the possession the Western Force were able to get. The result was that the Waratahs only had to make 56 tackles in the whole match.
Despite these statistics, the Waratahs were only able to win by 5 points against a side that did not try very hard to make much attack.
At half-time with the Western Force leading 9-6 the Waratahs coach, Chris Hickey, told the television commentators that he wanted his side to play ‘field position.’
What was really needed was for the backs and the forwards to actually take their attack to the Western Force. Some set moves and ploys by the backs, aside from the plodding inside cut by Tom Carter, would help the Waratahs’ cause as well.
As the tournament table stands now, the Reds (45) are almost certain to win the Australian conference. I say ‘almost’ because they have a huge match next weekend against the Blues, and then the following week, also at home, against the Crusaders.
A win in either of these matches would ensure a conference top place and possibly a first or second position on the table which will give them a bye in the first week of the finals.
They can still win the Australian conference even if they lose these two matches. Their final three matches are about as easy as it gets in this tough Super Rugby tournament: the Brumbies at home and the Western Force away.
The Waratahs are currently in 6th place on the table, one point ahead of the Highlanders. They have a bye next week, which under the points allocation system gives them 4 points. They then play two matches in South Africa against the Sharks and the Bulls. If they win both or one of these matches, they should make the finals.
The match against the Sharks is the crucial one. The South African side is currently 3 points in front of the Waratahs and a victory to one of them entrenches their specific position on the ladder.
The final two matches for the Waratahs are at home against the Highlanders and the Brumbies. With the Highlanders the main opposition (along with the Sharks) to their top six finals placing, this is a match the Waratahs will need to win.
It seems to me that the Highlanders have run out of gas. They played poorly against the Chiefs. After winning great victories against the Bulls and other strong sides like the Crusaders by maintaining a vigorous, up-tempo ball-in-hand game they became infected with the Waratahs’ virus and kicked the ball away to the Chiefs at every opportunity. The Chiefs were able to score two tries and this was enough to sink the Highlanders.
The game of the round, and almost the game of the tournament, was the epic clash between the Stormers and the Crusaders. This was rugby at its best with two well-coached and well-disciplined sides going at each other hammer and tongs from the opening whistle. In the end the self-belief and willpower of the Crusaders prevailed.
But it was also interesting to me that the Crusaders had anticipated the Stormers’ up-and-in defence by getting Sonny Bill Williams to run hard at the line the first four times he got the ball. When the defensive line held back a bit and braced itself for his charges Sonny Bill then slipped away several magic passes, one of which led to the Crusaders’ first try.
This was superb play by a player who is making a brilliant transition to rugby union. If he stays in the game (a big if, admittedly) he could become one of the greats.
The way he is playing he should have a big impact on the rest of the tournament, and later in the year in the Rugby World Cup. The Crusaders are shaping up to be either the top New Zealand side or, if this doesn’t happen, the highest ranked non-conference winner.
This brings us back to the Waratahs. The Reds and the Crusaders are trying to win the tournament with exciting, hard-shouldered play. The Waratahs are trying to bore us all in their attempt to win the tournament. It’s a pity for them the tournament is not a tunnel but a journey …