SPIRO: We are set for terrific Super Rugby finals series

At 5.23 am (AEST) SANZAR sent out the Super Rugby final series schedule to the media. The Brumbies play the Chiefs at Canberra on Saturday night and the Sharks play the Highlanders at Durban on 1.05 Sunday morning (AEST).

If the scores are level at full time in these qualifying finals there will be extra time played in two periods of 10 minutes. If the scores are still level, there will be a sudden death extra time period of up to 10 minutes.

If the scores are still level, there will be a kicking competition featuring five players from each team until the deadlock is resolved.

The media release noted that in the pool rounds of the 2014 Super Rugby tournament the Brumbies defeated the Chiefs 41-23 and the Sharks were defeated by the Highlanders at Durban 31-18.

The past history of wins and losses, either in total or against one another, are wiped out of the equation at kick-off. However, the home ground advantage remains as a bonus for the side that performed the best throughout the tournament, and teams should be rewarded for doing the hard yards throughout the tournament with the home ground advantage.

The finals line-up is a good reflection on the performance of the leading teams. The Waratahs won 12 matches, the Crusaders won 11 matches. Both these teams get automatic home matches for the semi-finals.

The Sharks and Brumbies, both with home qualifying finals, won 10 matches. The bottom two teams, the Chiefs and the Highlanders, won eight matches and are destined to play all their matches away if they progress.

The Brumbies were most impressive on Friday night in the way they smashed through the Western Force 47-25. Matt Toomua, coming back from an injury, was in tremendous form as he scored twice early on to set the Brumbies up for a bonus-point win and a home qualifying final.

In the end the Brumbies scored seven tries and conceded three. Their wingers, especially Henry Speight, were in devastating form. If the Brumbies carry this sort of rugby into the match against the Chiefs they will be hard to beat.

But it is a big if. The Brumbies started kicking early. But as soon as Toomua showed that the Force could not cope with a running game the Brumbies, to their credit, adjusted and ran rampant for the rest of the match. Will this spirit to run the ball be there next Saturday night? Or will the inclination for most of this season to play Jakeball prevail?

The Chiefs are a better side in every respect than the Force. They toughed out a hard victory at Eden Park, in appalling conditions, against the Blues. This was the first defeat for the Blues at Eden Park in over a year.

In the opening 20 minutes, the Chiefs were virtually entrenched near their own try line as the big Blues forwards smashed away at them. But the Chiefs displayed great resilience and force, especially in the forwards, to repel the Blues. The wet and cold conditions favoured the Chiefs, there was no way they could have matched the Blues try for try on a dry, windless night.

The main weakness in the Chiefs is a lack of power and size in the backs. This almost told against them in last year’s Super Rugby final, when tiredness from a torrid travelling itinerary got to the Brumbies in the last 20 minutes and the Chiefs were able to snatch a victory.

Sonny Bill Williams is coming back and there is talk, too, of Richard Kahui reviving his Chiefs career after a stint in Japan. One or both of them would make this two-time champions side a real contender this season. But, of course, this won’t happen until next year.

This time, the Brumbies will have a home ground advantage when they play the Chiefs. I would expect them to be too good all over the field, especially with their big outside backs, for the smaller and tenacious Chiefs. There is one proviso to be made here, however. The Chiefs are a good travelling side. And they are a good side at winning knock-out rugby. In fact, their record in the last two years has been the best of any of the teams in the finals.

The Highlanders defeated the Sharks in the round robin part of the tournament, at Durban. But I wouldn’t expect them to repeat this achievement in the qualifying final.

In the past two weekend, the Highlanders have been blasted off the park by the Waratahs and then the Crusaders. Both times it was a case of the Highlanders forwards not being able to get any parity in any sphere with the opposition pack.

The Crusaders, for instance, scored two rolling maul tries against the Highlanders and you would expect the Sharks to do rolling maul after rolling maul next weekend at Durban to break down the resistance of the Highlanders. This side needs the tough old man Brad Thorn to provide some steel in the forwards, but Thorn is out for the season with an arm injury.

There is some terrific break-out speed and flair in the Highlanders’ backs, especially if Ben Smith plays. But trying to win big matches off snatches of possession, with an inadequate scrum and lineout, is not a recipe for success.

It is not that the Sharks have been overly impressive, but they have a no-risks game that is hard to break down. This game relies a lot on winning penalties, which happened last weekend, with Jaco Peyper dishing them out to the Sharks early on, especially.

The thing is that the Sharks actually have a number of very fast outside backs. But the Jakeball game allows for the pace and flair of these back to be exploited only when the opposition has been put to the sword with attritional forward and kicking play. So even with the territorial advantages and penalty advantages, the Sharks never really looked like scoring the four tries and a 35-point winning margin they needed to take second place in the tournament.

There was an interesting article in Planet Rugby written by Ross Hastie, titled “‘Template rugby’ is poison for SA“.

By template rugby, the author means the Jake White template, “The game is planned to a template. Kick from here, run from here, maul from here etc.”

I have called this Jakeball. Hastie says this the template “has been detrimental to South African rugby on a number of levels”.

He pointed out that up to the weekend matches, the South African teams had produced only 10 bonus points to the 25 produced by the New Zealand teams and the 19 in Australia. Of all the teams in the Super Rugby tournament, only the Bulls and the Lions had scored fewer tries than the Sharks.

These three SA teams, too, are on the bottom of the table in the clean break statistics. And not a “single SA side is to be found in the top six in off-load numbers”.

I have expressed this a number of times on The Roar – much to the disgust of most South African rugby supporters – this is not winning rugby right now.

Teams are much better under the high ball than they were in 2007. The way the catch is being ruled, too, with the catcher being a protected player is defusing the bombs. Attack, especially from broken play, is much better than it was in 2007, mainly because the referees are tougher (as they should be) in requiring tacklers to release and roll away.

Anyway, Jake White is a smart coach. The Sharks playing Jakeball should demolish the Highlanders at Durban. But White will know that more attack will be needed to defeat their likely semi-finals opponents the Crusaders at Christchurch.

I expect the Brumbies, too, to be too strong especially out wide for the Chiefs. If this happens, we have the enticing prospect of the Brumbies playing the Waratahs in the second semi-final.

There is one further point I’d make about the 2014 Super Rugby tournament and the coming finals. This relates to the niggling, nasty and endlessly confrontational league played during the recent State of Origin series. Even after the dire first match, surely the worst game of rugby (league) ever inflicted on anyone, there were league tragics saying that it was no worse than, say, the the second Wallabies versus France Test this year.

What bull!

This reflex by league commentators to somehow justify boring matches with false comparisons with rugby matches needs to stop. It doesn’t hold up, as we saw with the enthralling Waratahs versus Reds match at the weekend.

The Reds threw everything at the Waratahs in the great tradition of a rugby rivalry that goes back to 1882. The Waratahs responded with some tremendous tries, with Kurtley Beale making spectacular break-outs, as Greg Inglis could be if he were playing rugby instead of league.

The Waratahs, even without Israel Folau, produced their biggest win ever in Super Rugby against the Reds, and in doing so established their credentials as the team to beat to win the tournament.