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The Waratah’s strong 30 minutes against the Western Force, and the stronger 40 minutes by the Brumbies to overwhelm the Rebels, indicates we have a three-team race for the Australian Conference title.
The likelihood, too, is that the winner of the Australian Conference will be the only Australian side in the Super Rugby finals.
Round eight, as with all the other rounds in this year’s tournament, featured terrific play from a number of teams. I’ve said it before and will say it again, but this is the most entertaining tournament with the closest results since Super Rugby started in 1996.
At the end of the round we have the Chiefs 31, Stormers 29, Highlanders 26, Hurricanes 25, Bulls and Brumbies 24, Crusaders 23, Sharks 22, Reds and Waratahs 21.
This means that the Australian Conference has only one team in the top eight in the tournament.
The way the finals system is constructed means that the top teams in each conference automatically reach the six-team finals and have a home final in their first match, irrespective of the number of points they have gained in the tournament or their standing on the table.
It is possible, but most unlikely, for a conference winner to be seventh in the tournament. The way the tournament stands after eight rounds is that the leading Australian side, the Brumbies, are in the top six – just. And something like this will probably be the outcome at the end of the pool rounds.
The question is, which of the Australian teams will come out on top of the Australian conference?
Before the weekend’s round, I would have said (and probably did) that it would be the Reds. That fearless prediction was based on the fact that the team is starting to get last season’s mojo back.
Also, the word was that Quade Cooper was only a week or so away from making his return. Cooper remains a key for the Red. But there are mixed messages about whether he will return soon.
With Will Genia playing like George Gregan did at the end of his career, when he gave away the running option which was so brilliant earlier on, and without Cooper, the Reds are pretty pedestrian in the backs.
The sad fact is that Genia is not rising to the occasion to fill the attacking void left by Cooper. I wouldn’t hazard a guess what is behind this out-of-sorts play, but his media interviews tend to suggest (admittedly obliquely) that he is less than happy about not being made captain of the Reds.
The Reds play the Stormers at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night. This is going to be a defining match. They hardly ever lose at Suncorp. The Stormers lost both of their second-rowers against the Crusaders in their torrid, Test-match intensity encounter at Christchurch.
Will the Stormers be too battered to match a Reds side coming off the bye? And will their talismanic giant second-rower Andries Bekker be on the playing list to give the Stormers dominance at the lineout?
What you can say about this match is that the circumstances could not be better for the Reds. They are rested, and playing at their fortress. They need a win to stay in contact with the leading bunch of Australian teams.
If they don’t win, they will have four losses, and get into the territory that every succeeding match is a must-win contest.
My query about the Brumbies, and this was expressed by a number of Roarers last week in discussing the team, was that they lacked the fire power to knock over the stronger teams.
This may well apply, and we shall see, but against the Rebels on Saturday night they played the best real 40 minutes of rugby the Brumbies have for years. Most importantly, they seemed to have a lot of firepower in their outside backs.
The forwards smashed into rucks and recycled the ball quickly. There were hard-shouldered rolling mauls in the South African mode to punish and tire the Rebels forwards.
And the backs played to a plan that involved Pat McCabe directing his hard running at the smaller James O’Connor.
The tactic worked perfectly. O’Connor hardly made a break. He missed several tackles which saw McCabe streaming through for a try and at other times setting up plays leading to tries.
Watching this match provided a vindication of sorts of Robbie Deans’ tactic of using McCabe as an inside centre in the 2011 Rugby World Cup. He made O’Connor look about as fearsome on defence as Justin Bieber.
More importantly, the bunch of no-names White has gathered into the Brumbies backline all have speed, the ability to make breaks, and in the case of Jesse Mogg, that X-factor that turns bad situations into try-scoring opportunities with pace, swerve and that indefinable but obvious quality that is called class.
The Brumbies look to me to be the best-coached side in the tournament. I have always argued that 90 percent of coaching is selection and then getting these selected players to play to the limits of their talents.
The first selection victory was to allow Rocky Elsom to go to the Waratahs in a swap for Ben Mowen. Elsom, who was bizarrely named captain of the Waratahs, is yet to play a match. Mowen has been outstanding every week, as he was again against the Rebels.
Coach Jake White broke the entitlement mould at the Brumbies by overlooking Stephen Moore for the captaincy, and instead giving it to the newcomer Mowen. Moore has responded to what he might consider to be something of a slight by playing his best rugby for years. He seems to have eliminated the fault of giving away ruck penalties from his game.
So White seems to be slowly but surely building a side that has strike-power in the backs and hard-shouldered power in the forwards. Most importantly, and this is the certain sign of a good coach in my opinion, all the players are playing well. The case of Christian Lealiifano is a case in point.
This journeyman inside centre has been transformed into a hard-running, slick passing, and solid tackling number 10 who kicks goals all over the field. Right now, with Cooper out, Lealiifano is the obvious choice (well ahead of Berrick Barnes) for the Wallabies number 10 spot.
Elsom’s selection by the Waratahs was and is a case of the entitlement disease that is eating away at the healthiness of the Waratahs franchise. Even without Elsom or Mowen, the Waratahs have several players, Dave Dennis and Dean Mumm particularly, who can play well at the blindside flanker. Why would the franchise want to buy a player who hardly played for the Brumbies last season? Then make him captain, even though he is injured!
On paper, and even with players out through injuries, the Waratahs have the best squad of the Australian Conference. It would be interesting to see what White could have done with the team. As it is, the Waratahs played brilliantly for 30 minutes against the Force. The ensemble try scored finally by Tom Kingston was one of the best the side has scored for some years.
But the team tired badly and got into a rut with its play and allowed the resilient but limited Force side to come back to be within a converted try of winning the match. This happens a lot with the Waratahs. I wonder if their training systems have too much emphasis on gym work and not enough on aerobic fitness.
I say this because it is always noticeable when the Crusaders play the Waratahs how much leaner even the Crusaders big men look than their Waratahs counterparts, props excluded.
The Crusaders are the side in the history of Super Rugby who have most placed aerobic fitness at the pinnacle for their players. On Saturday night, after the long trip back from South Africa, they nursed themselves through a tough match against the Stormers by kicking a lot and chasing, and making the Stormers chase more than they wanted to.
The Waratahs play the Rebels at Allianz Stadium next Saturday night. I would expect them to win this match comfortably, as the Brumbies did last weekend. If they do, and the Reds lose against the Stormers, the Waratahs could find themselves leading the Australian Conference, an outcome that seemed impossible a couple of weeks ago.
But I think it is unlikely that they’ll win the Australian Conference. And I think that poor coaching and a franchise culture that is hostile to young or new talent will take its toll by the end of the tournament.
While the Waratahs have a relatively easy match, the Brumbies have the game from hell on Saturday night South African time, a match against the Bulls at Pretoria after flying to South Africa only days earlier. The Bulls were merciless in overwhelming the hapless Lions, who had the temerity to establish a 10-point lead at the beginning of their match.
If the Brumbies win this match or even get points out of it, it will be the sort of outcome that keeps in the game to win the Australian Conference.
One further point about good coaching. Who would have predicted at the beginning of the tournament this year that the Chiefs, a flaky side for years, would be the leading team, playing smart and aggressive rugby both on the attack and in defence.
Coach Dave Rennie, like Jake White, has won the IRB Under-20 title. Everyone in the team is playing at their best, including an impressive Sonny Bill Williams and an even more impressive Aaron Cruden.
The complaint is often made that there is a lack of playing talent in Australian rugby. I reckon the real problem is a lack of coaching talent.