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The June Internationals are upon us and this means that Super Rugby takes a hiatus while the international players bash the hell out of their Northern Hemisphere counterparts.
The men that didn’t get the call up will play for their clubs to keep in shape and in condition.
Over the next three days, we’ll look at which teams have a chance of getting into the play-off rounds and what went wrong for the others.
As of Round 16, the cellar dwellers are the Cheetahs, Rebels and Lions. After last year people expected the Cheetahs to back their season up with another good year but they have stumbled and bumbled to earn three victories and a draw, accumulating 20 points.
There isn’t any obvious reason why they landed up at the bottom compared to last year. There hasn’t been a player exodus and the coaching personnel hasn’t changed. They have scored 32 tries, more than the table-topping Sharks, and Willie le Roux has made the second-most metres in the competition.
The glaring flaw in their stats is the points difference, letting through more points than any other team with a -127 points difference. That is a huge deficit and explains why they sit at the bottom of the table and highlights the lack of physical defence.
One point clear of them sit the Rebels. They showed so much promise at the beginning of the year but seemed to fall into the same rut as before and lost games they potentially could have won and are fighting to stay off the bottom.
They have proven they can win against their bigger Australian counterparts, beating the Reds, Brumbies and Force, but have failed to put together a winning streak of more than one week.
They haven’t fired at all this season and there have been few stand-out players, so they find themselves in the same position as they have been in the past. They need better team cohesion and the ability to shut out the opposition.
Sitting third from the bottom are the Lions, who have surprised a few people with strong victories over more fancied opponents.
At the beginning of the season they managed to win four from six, but then lost the next seven until beating the Bulls in Round 16. They were touted to be the most improved team of the season, coming back from the wilderness last year, but have found themselves near the bottom again.
They deserve some slack as they are a very young and inexperienced team – a large percentage of their roster had less than 10 caps at the beginning of the season. Johan Ackerman has brought together a young team and has grown the potential in them to beat the Reds, Stormers and Bulls.
The Reds, Stormers and Blues are the three teams that have surprised people in their failures this year.
Former champions, the Reds have been a shadow of their former selves since Ewen McKenzie left for the Wallaby job. I wonder if he watches the Reds and wonders, “What did you do to my baby?” Richard Graham couldn’t do a thing with the Force so why do people think he could do anything with the Reds?
The win over the Highlanders lifted them off the bottom of the table but their season is over and has been for a long time. They couldn’t put together more than one-win in a row and had a six-game losing streak before breaking it in a bit of style and drama against the Highlanders.
The Stormers have the same issue – an out-of-touch coach. Allister Coetzee may have led the Stormers into the play off finals in previous years, but he has constricted the players to predictive plays and unimaginative rugby.
The injury list for the Stormers is long and this can count against the potential victories but all teams have suffered injuries and this is not a viable excuse for losing this badly throughout the season.
The Blues had all the hype after signing Benji Marshall and John Kirwan promising results, but that all fell apart by Round 8, with three wins from eight. Marshall became a side attraction and eventually returned to the NRL.
The Blues haven’t got much to show for their season besides making Auckland a fortress, without a loss in Eden Park this year. That is something to be proud of but little else. While the other New Zealand teams fight each other, with six points separating them, the Blues sit ten points from the conference-leading Crusaders.
It’s been 11 years since they won the trophy and it looks like it’ll be another decade before they see any silverware again.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.