NRC Semi-Finals: The final that no-one picked

Plenty of us thought Brisbane City might be good enough to topple NSW Country, sure. Plenty of us even gave Perth Spirit some hope of upsetting Melbourne, if everything went right for them on the day, and if the new combinations gelled quickly.

And if Melbourne had an off game. And plenty more ifs.

However, if we’re all honest – really, properly honest – none of us saw a Brisbane City-Perth Final coming.

I said in Friday’s preview that I thought the NSW Country-Brisbane City clash shaped up as one of the games of the competition thus far, and by fulltime, I was pretty content it wouldn’t be topped.

It was a cracking semi, full of well-worked, lucky, soft and even penalty tries, try-saving desperation, disallowed tries, and drama from whistle to siren.

But sure enough, not even 24 hours later it was topped, as Perth pulled off the upset of the NRC to knock over the previously undefeated and completely dominant Melbourne Rising on their own turf.

NSW Country Eagles 26 lost to Brisbane City 32, at Central Coast Stadium, Gosford. Crowd: withheld
Oh, what might’ve been for the Eagles. Had inside centre Apukaki Ma’afu not lost the ball over the line despite the desperation of City fullback Brando Va’aulu. Had Sam Windsor not lost control of the ball in grounding it after charging down and beating Brisbane flyhalf Jake McIntyre to the ball in the in-goal.

It’s easy to say Country lost the game in those two moments, but it really doesn’t tell the whole story.

In reality, Country lost the game in the six or seven minutes that followed Windsor’s no-try, where Brisbane ran in two converted tries to peg back, and then resume the lead.

If there’s been one constant in the NRC, and maybe even the biggest impact of the change in points scoring, it’s been that teams conceding converted tries in rapid succession often found it difficult to come back.

But if you look beyond the scoreline, you also get a fair idea of where the game was won and lost.

The limited set of stats on the NRC site show that City held 63 per cent of possession for the match, but my own perception was that it was much more than this in the second half. In fact, after Windsor’s try was disallowed I can’t really recall Country having the ball for any extended periods.

And this is why the City stats read like they do. 170 phases to 84; four lots of seven-plus phases to one. 146 carries to 57, for 699 metres to 399. 115 attacking rucks and mauls to 42.

But there’s also a few surprise numbers to read: Turnovers and handling errors were pretty even, as were scrum wins. City won six more lineouts, but both teams only stole one off the opposition throw. Country actually missed less tackles (17 to City’s 25), while City conceded 18 full arm penalties to seven.

The defence numbers aren’t listed, which is a shame, but I can only imagine the tackle numbers for Country were enormous. If Jake Schatz, Liam Gill, and Dave McDuling all made more than a dozen runs each of the Brisbane forwards – and Samu Kerevi and Chris Kuridrani both made more than 14 each in the backs – someone had to tackle them.

Ultimately, Brisbane got the job done on the back of their second-half momentum, and their tremendous patience and composure in defence when Country did get some ball in the last ten minutes.

Just as NSW Country should remain proud of a very strong inaugural NRC campaign, Brisbane will hit the training track very satisfied with their performance in a knockout situation against a very good team.

Hosting the final should also ensure they start as favourites on Saturday night at Ballymore.

Melbourne Rising 29 lost to Perth Spirit 45, at AAMI Park, Melbourne. Crowd: 1764
Put simply, this was a magnificent performance from the Perth side. The decision to call on the experience and quality of their Super Rugby players seemed obvious from the outside looking in, but it must’ve been tempting to reward the wider Force squad and academy players, as well as the Perth club players who got the team into the finals to begin with.

Regardless, Perth were going to have to be at their very best to topple the standout team of the competition, and to their absolute credit, they certainly were.

In their eight wins previous, Melbourne’s execution and skill levels were from the top shelf. On Saturday, you certainly couldn’t say that was the case. Rather than turning in fairly complete performances as they had for most of the competition, this was one where they only showed what they were capable of in patches.

And that’s mainly because of the pressure Perth put them under. The Spirit got out to a 13-point lead nearing the half hour mark, but only after a real arm-wrestle for the first 20 minutes, in which neither side was able to break through. The Spirit defence was outstanding early on, which in hindsight, was only a precursor for what was to come.

Leading 13-8 at halftime, the key to the Perth win was their ability to stay out of reach, often hitting back shortly after Melbourne scored themselves.

Perth scored the first try after the break, to put the margin out to 13 points, but kept their composure when the Rising hit back on 50 minutes. Two tries in eight minutes then put the lead out to 21, and with 13 minutes to go, the boilover was well and truly on. The ease with which Spirit captain Sam Wykes crashed over certainly had me thinking that from here on a berth in the final was Perth’s to lose.

With the possession fairly even for the match – Melbourne had 53 per cent, Perth 47 per cent – it was inevitable that Melbourne would hit back once they held the ball for any length of time. Sefa Naivalu went over out wide to bring the margin back under two converted tries, but Jack Debreczini will still be ruing his rushed conversion of his own try, which left the margin at eight points with three minutes to play.

Ammon Matuauto scored his second try on fulltime to secure the upset; an entirely deserved 45-29 win.

There’s no question that the inclusion of the Super Rugby players did the trick for Perth, and after toppling the undefeated competition leaders at home, Spirits will be high for the decider, if you’ll excuse a poor pun.

I do have to say that it’s a shame that the dominant team of the competition now can’t win the NRC. Should Perth get up at Ballymore next Saturday, they still won’t have won as many games as Melbourne did. But as Melbourne are now finding out, Perth will have won the ones that count, and fair play to them.

NRC Final:
Saturday, 6:35 local time (7:35pm AEDT): (3) Brisbane City v (4) Perth Spirit; Ballymore Oval, Brisbane.