SPIRO: Waratahs might have to win the finals without Latu and Skelton

About 12.22am on Sunday, two SANZAR media release emails, one citing Silatolu Latu and the other Will Skelton, appeared in my Hotmail basket. The emails spell big trouble for the Waratahs.

As a result their journey to win back-to-back Super Rugby titles may be derailed.

After a splendid and convincing victory against the Crusaders 32-22 in front of 26,000 spectators, a win that should ensure the franchise a place in the finals, the Waratahs now face the loss of one or both these players in the run-up to the finals, or in finals if they progress that far in the tournament.

The media releases are basically the same in their wording, aside from the specific names of the players.

“(Silatolu Latu/Will Skelton) Cited
… Nature of Offence: Law 10.4 (j). Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground while that player’s feet are still off the ground such that the player’s head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play …

(Latu, Skelton) is alleged to have contravened 10.4 (j) Lifting Tackle, in an incident which occurred in the 17th minute of the Super Rugby match between the Waratahs and Crusaders at ANZ Stadium in Sydney on 23 May 2015.

(Latu) The referee for the match, Marius van der Westhuizen, issued a yellow card for the incident. Upon further review of the match footage, the Citing Commissioner deemed in his opinion the incident had met the red card threshold for foul play.

(Skelton) Upon further review, the Citing Commissioner deemed in his opinion the incident had met the red card threshold for foul play …”

This decision to include Latu and Skelton in the lifting incident is justified because, in my opinion which is backed by the initial reaction of the match commentators, Skelton, more than Latu, was the main driver of the so-called tip tackle.

By citing Skelton as well as the Latu, who was given a yellow card, the citing commissioner is making it clear that Skelton has a case to answer, even though the field referee Marius van der Westhuizen and the TMO Peter Marshall both cleared him.

To make matters worse for both players, the incident took place after the whistle had blown, a time when the player with the ball, Crusaders lock Sam Whitelock, was at his most vulnerable.

According to Georgina Robinson, who was at the ground, “Latu held Whitelock’s legs while teammate Skelton held the top of the Crusader’s body.” This is exactly as the television replays showed it.

The replays also show, in my opinion and the opinion of the Fox Sports commentators Greg Clarke and Phil Kearns, that it was Skelton who led the driving downwards push against Whitelock.

You watch the replay and you can hear Clarke and Kearns both call Skelton as the perpetrator. And this was the opinion, too, of the referee Westhuizen.

Enter now the TMO, Peter Marshall. Let me say this right now, I admired Marshall as a referee and believe that his efforts to ensure that referees were facilitators rather than managers of the game, in other words letting the game flow, have done a great deal in creating the vibrant, athletic and hard-shouldered version of modern rugby we enjoy these days, as spectators and (lucky fellows) as players.

But in this instance, and later in the game in another incident involving Skelton, Marshall made the wrong call as the TMO.

In this case, he convinced referee Westhuizen that Latu was the main driver of the tip tackle, and so the Waratahs hooker received a yellow card. Skelton, therefore, was fortunate to escape the yellow card.

The Waratahs coach Michael Cheika hasn’t helped the cause of his players with his dismissal of the incident with the comment that “he (Whitelock) didn’t land on his head or anything like that … they’re trying to hold him up for the maul, one’s on top, sometimes that just happens”.

If this is going to be the Waratahs’ defence, then Skelton and Latu are in big trouble.

To begin with, as the citing order makes clear if the “upper body” comes in contact with the ground after a player has been lifted and then dropped or driven (as Whitelock was) it is “dangerous play”.

The maul defence is hardly credible when the incident happened after the whistle.

The Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder noted something else that Cheika, understandably perhaps, glossed over when he told reporters after the match that the citing commissioner might be “interested” in a number of other incidents involving Skelton, “including a charge that took out No. 7 Richie McCaw, and an apparent shoulder charge into a ruck”.

The shoulder charge incident, coming in from the side and hitting a ruck like an unguided missile (with shoulders and no binding) is the same sort of incident that got the Hurricanes prop Reggie Goodes a week’s suspension recently under Rule 10.4 (h).

The charge on McCaw was just as blatant. McCaw was standing “holding his ground”, according to the referee, with his back to the Waratahs watching a teammate field a high ball. Skelton charged through like a runaway rhino and actually changed direction to hit the unsuspecting McCaw violently, allowing the kicker to get his kick away.

Referee Westhuizen, in only his eighth Super Rugby match, was inclined to penalise Skelton until TMO Marshall talked him out of this decision. Marshall’s argument was that Skelton was chasing through on the ball.

I am sorry but this is nonsense. Replays showed quite clearly that Skelton aimed up on McCaw and not the kicker to force a charge down. This incident is a clear violations of Rule 10.4 ((a): “A player must not strike an opponent with the fist or arm, including the elbow, shoulder, head or knees.”

There is something more that needs to be said about these incidents.

Does any one believe that if one of the Crusaders had done what Skelton and Latu (who also was involved in an undetected shoulder charge) did, would those Crusaders have escaped with only one yellow card?

Does anyone believe that if any Waratahs players had been involved in similar incidents at Christchurch that they would have escaped with one yellow card?

These matters cast a black cloud over what should have been a glittering day for the Waratahs. They out-muscled the Crusaders, they out-defended them with their rush defence, they exploited their opportunities from Crusaders mistakes brilliantly and generally out-thought the Crusaders.

In my view, the Waratahs have established themselves as a genuine title-contender, not merely a finals possibility. They have shown this season that, generally (let’s forget about the Stormers loss), they can rise to the occasion against really strong sides like the Hurricanes and Crusaders (both defeated) and the Chiefs (a narrow loss).

Mark Ella had a tough column in The Australian on Saturday lamenting the fact that the Waratahs had lost their ability to score tries.

His statistics were solid. Israel Folau (tryless again against the Crusaders) has scored only two times in the previous 12 matches this season. At the same point last season, he had scored 10 tries from 12 matches.

The Waratahs this season, up to Saturday night, had scored 30 tries and only two try-scoring bonus points. Last year, at the same stage in the tournament, the Waratahs had scored 37 tries and six try-scoring bonus points.

Ella argued that a certain predictability had come into the Waratahs game. This is probably true. But Cheika seems to have realised this. Stephen Hoiles has added lineout options and some cleverness to the play of the forwards. The backs seemed to be flatter in their alignment, with Kurtley Beale attacking the drift defence with inside passes and breaks more than he has done earlier in the season.

When the Waratahs got a roll on against the Waratahs, there was more of the irresistable surge about the attack, as there was last year.

The top eight teams after this round, with every team playing 13 rounds, are: Hurricanes 57 points, Waratahs 41, Stormers 38, Chiefs 44, Highlanders 43, Brumbies 38, Lions 36, Bulls 35.

It looks to me like the finals will involve three New Zealand teams, the Hurricanes, Chiefs and Highlanders. All these teams were impressive at the weekend, with the Highlanders especially playing shrewdly against the Force at Perth, always a dangerous opponent for teams on their way to, or especially coming back from South Africa.

There will be at least one Australian team as the winner of the Australian Conference (the Waratahs, I reckon) and the South African Conference winner, the Stormers (most likely).

That leaves one other spot to be fought out between the Brumbies, Lions and Bulls. My guess that this spot will be won by the Brumbies. But don’t ask me how this will be achieved.

The Brumbies play the Bulls at Canberra on Friday night and later in the weekend, at altitude in South Africa, the Waratahs play the Lions who ran amok against the toothless, clawless Cheetahs.

Dropping one of these matches will be damaging to their conference-winning chances for the Brumbies and Waratahs. I don’t expect this to happen. So my less than fearless prediction about two Australian teams in the final six still stands.