SPIRO: Waratahs and Sharks finalists but who are the other four?

The Waratahs monstered an under-strength Brumbies 39-8 at ANZ Stadium, meaning the men from NSW have won the Australian Super Rugby conference.

The Sharks can’t be over-taken in the South African conference, either.

But who will win the New Zealand conference and which teams will make the last four places in the finals is a sort of Donald Rumsfeldism unknown known.

We do know the teams that will make up the race to the finals and the head of the New Zealand conference: the Crusaders on 42 points, Highlanders 42, Hurricanes 41 (only one match left to play), Brumbies 40 (one match left to play), Western Force 36, Blues 36, Chiefs 36, Bulls 33.

Given the winner of the New Zealand conference is guaranteed a spot, this leaves seven teams, from all the conferences, with a chance to take up the last four places. These are the known unknown teams.

We will undoubtedly have to wait for the results of the last two rounds before the puzzle is solved.

Next weekend’s key matches are Chiefs versus Hurricanes, Crusaders versus Blues, Force versus Reds, Stormers versus Bulls, and Waratahs versus Highlanders.

The key matches in the last round are Blues versus Chiefs, Brumbies versus Force, Bulls versus Rebels, Crusaders versus Highlanders, and Reds versus Waratahs.

There are all sorts of variables left open. The main determinant, though, is that eight of these ten matches are local derbies. This opens up the dreaded cannibalising effect. There are ten teams still in finals contention: three Australian, two South African, five New Zealand.

Ten into four doesn’t go. But it is a braver person than me who has the confidence to make any predictions at this time.

As an aside, Super Rugby is sometimes given a hard time for all the travelling teams have to do, and the disperse nature of the tournament. But it invariably produces fascinating races to the finals, and then even more fascinating and exciting finals results.

Almost always there is a team that builds up a head of steam and rushes towards the finals with some unexpected momentum. The weekend’s round showed this momentum team is the Blues. Their demolition of the Force was one of the dominating displays in Super Rugby 2014.

The Blues had their bonus point try within 20 minutes of play! They were powerful in the forwards and dynamic in the backs. The elevation of the youngster Ihaia West to flyhalf has improved the side immensely. The style the team is playing, too, with hard-driving forward play and smashing attacks down the middle of the field suits the size and power of the team.

Graham Henry leaves the Blues coaching staff at the end of the season, while Sir John Kirwan has been re-appointed for a couple more years. It would be interesting to know the dynamics of all of this. Henry has been associated with all the Blues’ Super Rugby triumphs. Is the resurgence of the Blues due to Henry or Kirwan?

More to the point, has the team left their run too late? As Tim Horan noted during the Force massacre, if the Blues do make the finals they will be a dangerous team for their opponents, if they play the way they did at Perth.

The Highlanders, too, were impressive in downing the Chiefs. But you would have to think the Chiefs have shot their bolt for 2014. There are some strange selections taking place. Why wasn’t Tim Nanai-Williams a starter, for instance?

The Hurricanes were even more impressive in defeating the Crusaders 16-9 at Wellington. Whenever they had the ball, the Hurricanes looked dangerous. The Crusaders, on the other hand, had no penetration. They need their big Fijian Nemani Nabolo back as soon as possible.

There was no Crusader who could bust the defence with pace and size. This meant that the ball movement was across the field rather than down, and you don’t score tries by crossing the touch lines. Todd Blackadder has failed to establish a coherent game plan for the Crusaders and you’d have to wonder if his days are numbered at the franchise.

Leaving Dan Carter and Kieran Read on the bench seemed to be a folly. Why would you bring them on when the game had already turned against the Crusaders? Surely you would start them and then sub them after they had established a winning platform.

It is much easier, generally, to defend a lead than to chase it.

This brings us to the Waratahs, who were the most impressive team on display at the weekend. I have only one complaint about their play. They started the game trying to match the Brumbies kick with kick. This meant the blistering starts they have had in the recent matches just didn’t eventuate. It also meant their flowing, dangerous game never got into gear.

This was an absolutely crucial match for the Waratahs. A win took them to the top of the tournament table, a loss would have seen the Brumbies knock them off top spot of the Australian conference.

The hesitant, negative kicking start reminded me of the previous times the Waratahs have played finals matches and froze under the pressure. Was this going to happen once more? Thankfully not. Once the points were on the board, especially after Alofa Alofa’s intercept try, the Waratahs started to play their irresistible, forceful ensemble game. The Brumbies had no answer.

The Australian conference has a leading team that will be extremely hard to beat at home, where at least one of its finals matches will be played. If the Waratahs come out on top of the conference points table, which is a distinct possibility, they face the delicious prospect of playing all their finals matches in Sydney.

A couple of comments are warranted about the Brumbies. I know they had a great many players out, but I always find it disheartening when teams go into important matches with the negative intent of trying not to lose rather than the positive intent of trying to win.

The Brumbies tactics, if they could be called this, could be summed up as niggle and kick. The Brumbies infringed at every ruck and maul. Referee Steve Walsh, to his credit, was on to the trick and penalised the Brumbies out of their game plan. Then we had Nic White kicking the ball away time after time. Even when the Brumbies were well down and with time running out, they refused to run the ball back from Waratah kicks.

The exception was Clyde Rathbone, who still has the instincts of a star player from the era of the great Brumbies. He powered into the Waratahs when he ran back kicks. But he was like a giant trying to lead a mob of (kicking) pygmies.

One of the commentators at the game made the observation the Brumbies were playing their usual kicking for territory game. A correction is due here. This is the Jakeball game that was given to them by Jake White. The South Africans play this game with great skill and success. But Australian teams (admittedly the Brumbies were in the finals last year) don’t have the forwards or the chasing wingers to make Jakeball work.

The Brumbies and the Wallabies for that matter are or were at their best and their most successful when they played the Rod Macqueen continuity game. This is the game that brought the Brumbies (with coaches Eddie Jones and David Nucifora) their Super Rugby titles.

It is the game that will bring the Brumbies another Super Rugby title when they start to play it with the passion and skill they did when the present coach, Stephen Larkham, was the master at releasing running plays.

So, with congratulations to the Waratahs for keeping faith in the Australian running game, the sermon ends.