SPIRO: Brumbies and Waratahs fighting for the Conference

Despite some inept refereeing and data-tortured TMO decisions, Round 14 of the 2015 Super Rugby tournament produced seven matches of high-quality and dramatic rugby.

It was, for me at least, a highlight of the year. What a wonderful spectacle rugby is when teams play as if their lives depend on a winning outcome.

There were different narratives involved in each of the matches. But the play on the field, with hard-shouldered scrumming and rucking, determined and skilful running with the ball and some tremendous goal-kicking – Bernard Foley with seven successful kicks from seven attempts take a bow – was generally at the standard of many Tests.

The narrative of the Hurricanes-Chiefs match revolved around the question of whether the Hurricanes formidable sequence of wins this season could be stopped to allow a New Zealand side the slightest of openings to challenge them for the top spot in the New Zealand Conference.

It was almost certain before the match that the Hurricanes would top the New Zealand conference, and take number one spot in the finals series. Their victory over a very competitive and brave Chiefs side that missed Brodie Retallick in the forwards and Sonny Bill Williams in the backs (the equivalent of missing four players) has clinched this.

With four rounds to play before the finals, the Hurricanes are now on 52 points. The Highlanders and the Chiefs are on 39 points, making the New Zealand teams 1, 2, and 3 on the points table.

The Crusaders are on 31 points and their only chance of making the finals is to win all their remaining matches, starting with the huge away match against the Waratahs next week in Sydney.

There is a strong possibility of three New Zealand teams in the finals. And if the Crusaders make their traditional late-season surge, we could see – and I do not believe that this will actually happen – four New Zealand teams in the finals.

For the Australian teams, the key to getting anywhere is to get the important top of the conference position, ahead in points of the winner of the South African conference.

Given the erratic play of the leading South African teams, including the abysmal loss by the slow-plod, maul-obsessed Bulls to a Blues side that is essentially clueless about game management, it is entirely possible for this to happen.

The value of winning the Australian Conference with more points than the South African Conference winners is that it gives either the Brumbies or the Waratahs a guaranteed place in the semi-finals.

My understanding of the points system is that the top two conference winners (in terms of points accumulated) get an automatic home semi-final. This happens, even if as could happen, there are teams coming out of the qualifying finals with more actual competition points.

This requirement of a home semi-final for the top two conference sides was the result of some shrewd lobbying by John O’Neill when he was the chief executive of the ARU. He could see that there could be years when either the South African or New Zealand might overwhelm the Australian Conference.

This looks like one of those years. The Hurricanes-Chiefs match was of the highest quality. In a normal season, the Hurricanes would begin to fade away about now, rather like a magnesium flare. There is just so far a brilliant back line can go in winning competitions. In the end, the team that wins the battle of the advantage line, which means winning the set pieces (or parity, at least) and the collisions, will win the match.

Here we come to the advantage of smart coaching. Stand up John Plumtree now and take a bow as the forwards coach who has put steel and fire (to mix the metaphor) into the Hurricanes pack.

Incidentally, I am surprised that no one in New Zealand has floated the idea of Plumtree taking over the Blues coaching role from the embattled John Kirwan.

The Chiefs and the Highlanders and/or Crusaders will all be formidable teams for either the Waratahs or the Brumbies to knock over in a finals series. But I thought the way these two leading Australian sides responded to the challenges facing them, coming off losses in their last match, was extremely positive for their chances in the finals (if they get there, of course).

The Waratahs showed championship toughness and resolve in defeating a tough, determined and often nasty Sharks side 33-18 at Allianz Stadium.

They started the match, as they often did last year, with a dazzling set piece move that involved the unique running skills (is there a faster forward in world rugby?) of Michael Hooper.

In another life, Hooper would have been a great centre. But right now he is devastating running with the ball, which is the way Michael Cheika is using him with the Waratahs.

I would suggest that Cheika look seriously at keeping Hooper as the Wallabies number 7 and looking at David Pocock, who was excellent once again against the Lions for the Brumbies, as a number 8. Pocock now plays very much like George Smith, dominating the collisions, making tackles, digging for the ball, linking expertly with the outside backs (but not running like Hooper).

He is strong at the back of the rolling mauls and dominating the middle of the field.

Another plus for the Waratahs was the return to form of Bernard Foley with his goal-kicking. He kicked seven goals from seven attempts and scored a try, accumulating 23 points to equal the record haul of points pulled in by Mat Rogers against the Sharks in 2004.

There was a zip and purpose, too, about Foley’s play that has perhaps been missing a bit this season.

Cheika’s game plan for the Waratahs is slightly more sophisticated than it has been earlier in the season. Will Skelton is being used more in the lineouts and as a second runner, rather than as a first receiver.

Taqele Naiyaravoro, the huge, blockbuster of a winger, is being used a lot more in the middle of the field, leaving Adam Ashley-Cooper to range a bit wider in the manner of Conrad Smith. The Hurricanes are doing this a lot with Julian Savea, and for the same reason. Rob Horne is also injecting some of his vigorous knees and elbows pumping running into the mid-field.

The point here is that breaks in the middle of the field or some penetration that breaks the defensive lines allow smart sides to decide which side of the ruck to continue the attack. After a phase or two of this, the defence somewhere, if the attack is done properly, runs out of tacklers.

Naiyaravoro is yet to be tested by a side kicking high balls to him or making him turn and chase long kicks. If he can do these chores adequately, and he does have Israel Folau to help out with the high balls, then he is a decided chance to make the Wallabies squad, probably as a reserve winger.

In Test rugby, all the players are competent. What you are looking for is something special from some of the players, either extreme pace (Beauden Barrett, Michael Hooper), phenomenal and intelligent work rate (Richie McCaw), immense size and some speed (Will Skelton, Brodie Retallick, in the forwards) and (Julian Savea and, perhaps Taqele Naiyaravoro in the backs).

The Waratahs scrum and lineout held up well enough against the abrasive Sharks pack. The Waratahs backs, too, contained the similarly abrasive Sharks backs and made some telling breaks against them.

I liked the gritty and determined way the Waratahs played. They play the Crusaders next Saturday at the ANZ Stadium, in a match that is crucial for both sides. The Crusaders put the Sharks to the sword when they played them. But easy victories like this can be misleading. The Sharks have regrouped from this thrashing. And it needed a strong-willed Waratahs side to defeat them.

Similar comments can be applied to the Brumbies in their clinical hammering (as one South African report noted) of the Lions at Johannesburg. The Lions were coming off a win against the rampant Highlanders and they were playing at home, at altitude.

But it was the Brumbies who played as if they were the home side, shrugging off the adverse penalty count from Jaco Peyper to score four tries. They gave away their obsession with the rolling maul, until they were well in front and well into the second half.

It is true that the Brumbies have been the most successful side in scoring tries (five) from rolling mauls. But the points gained from the tries have been more than negatively compensated for by the points lost when kickable shots at goal have been turned down in favour of the maul.

I also believe that the obsessive maul mentality inhibits teams from playing winning ball-in-hand rugby. Figures published before the latest round of match showed that South African sides had between them won 56 penalties from rolling mauls, Australian (mainly the Brumbies) 25 and New Zealand sides only 11 penalties.

The most successful team in the competition, the Hurricanes had completed only 21 rolling mauls, the Highlanders 20, the Crusaders 43 and the Chiefs and Blues 46.

The Brumbies had mauled 75 times (the most in the competition), the Bulls and Cheetahs 73 times, Sharks 71, Reds 52, Stormers 51 and Waratahs 32.

Only the Highlanders 18 and the Hurricanes 32 made fewer metres from rolling mauls than the Reds, 44.

This statistic is interesting as the Reds put on double the number of rolling mauls than the Hurricanes or the Highlanders. What this suggests is that the Reds problem this year has been effectiveness in their play.

And perhaps this is the explanation for the remarkable 46-29 victory over the Rebels at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night. Remarkable because of the poor record of the Reds this season and the strong start by the Rebels which culminated with a terrific try by Sefanaia Naivalu from in front of their posts.

It was not until the 44th minute that the Reds took the lead. Once in front, the Reds bolted away in a manner that matched some of the spectacular and wide-ranging play of the champion side of 2011.

Having a specialist number 10, admittedly inexperienced, in Jake McIntyre made a world of difference. McIntyre’s judgment of when to run the ball and when to play field position was excellent. He ran on to the ball and generally played much flatter than the faux five-eighths used earlier in the season.

The terrific, inspirational play of Liam Gill was also a factor. In many ways, Gill is the best loose forward in Australia. But he isn’t as fast as Hooper or as dominant over the ball as Pocock. In any other era he would be a first choice Wallaby. But this is not any other era in Australian rugby for loose forwards, especially number sevens.

And what about the John ‘Knuckles’ Connolly factor? We will have to see how the Reds go against the Sharks next Friday to be more definitive. But there was far more purpose and method in the Reds play.

They identified a weakness in the Rebels defensive line near the ruck, for instance, and exploited this with Will Genia’s running game being brought out of his kit bag, for the first time this season.

And there was a clarity about the way the Reds played.

If this new Reds maturity and effectiveness is shown to be the norm in the coming weeks, then there will be calls I suppose for Richard Graham to stay on.

In my view, though, if clarity has come from Connolly’s presence, this is a compelling reason to appoint a coach who doesn’t need an old-timer to tell him some elementary truths and principles about running a competent coaching regime.