Super Rugby run home: A thrilling two weeks to come

Man, oh man, there are some really big, important games to come in the final weeks of this Super Rugby season. Even the Hurricanes, who look safe at the top of the table, are sorta-kinda vulnerable to a last-season toppling.

You couldn’t really ask for much more. If the top six had been nailed down a month ago, we’d be left to lament teams going through the motions and resting key players. With it all on the line, there’s still a lot to play for, for several teams.

For one thing, the Crusaders are still in the hunt, and just refuse to let me put the red line through them. Their up-and-down season may yet see them miss the playoffs, but would I want to play them in an elimination final, if they got there? Hell, no.

Considering how they’ve ridden the roller coaster all season, would anyone be overly surprised if the ‘Saders lost to the Blues at Eden Park this weekend? The Blues, despite consistently being in the bottom five, have lost just five of 18 games in Auckland since the start of the 2013 season, and that includes two wins over the Crusaders in that same time.

But a win would keep the Crusaders in the hunt, even if those chances remain faint. In fact, if the Brumbies and Chiefs win this weekend, then a Crusaders win may not be enough. And it would certainly be ironic if they won their penultimate game of the season but were knocked out of the running on the same weekend.

Will I tip against them? Don’t know. Come back to me on Friday.

The Bulls are all but done, and Frans Ludeke admitted post-match on Friday night that his team would “need a few favours” over the remaining weeks. The only thing that keeps their hopes alive is that they’re only one win behind the Lions, who play the conference-leading Stormers in Cape Town this weekend, and have the bye in the following round.

But like the Crusaders, winning may not be enough for the Bulls, either. Even if they finished with two bonus point wins – and they play the Rebels and Cheetahs, remember – they can still only get to 46 points. And if the Brumbies win just one of their last two and also finished on 46, their record is superior in all of the tie-breaking aspects (bar the coin toss).

For the Lions, it’s beat the Stormers at Newlands or forget about it. And even then, †hey will be sweating on results in the final round, at which time they’ll be cooling their heels at home with the bye.

So a win over the Stormers would see the Lions take the South African conference lead. Who picked that would ever happen at the start of the year? Exactly, no one. But while sitting atop the conference watching on while possible playoff opponents get bashed, they’ll be hoping the Sharks can help them out by beating the Stormers in Durban.

And if the Bulls do register a bonus-point win over the Rebels, the Lions will need the Cheetahs to at least not get smashed when they play the Bulls in Pretoria. The Lions could go from having a home final to missing the playoffs completely, and they can’t do a bloody thing about it. Talk about rough draws!

There is a strong belief that the current top six will be the final top six, with a few internal positional changes. I tend to agree with this, with the Hurricanes the only side unlikely to move. That said, if I follow my forward projections from a month ago for Round 17, then the top six won’t change at all this weekend, and there’ll be a six-point gap between sixth and seventh.

The Brumbies in sixth can probably lock in a playoff spot this weekend with a win in Perth over the Force. If the Reds can record a bonus point against the Force, then you’d like to think a finals-bound Brumbies side can as well. A bonus-point win would take the Brumbies to 47 points, meaning that not even the fast-finishing Crusaders – who they’ll host in the final round – could run them down.

That needs to be the goal, nay the requirement, of the weekend for the Brumbies.

The Chiefs find themselves in a bit of a bind. They beat the Bulls very well a fortnight ago, yet found themselves on the end of a similar belting down in the thick and cold air of Invercargill. This weekend they face the Reds in Brisbane with the taste of a good win, and the smell of a wounded contender in their nostrils.

A win would almost certainly confirm their playoffs place. A loss with wins around them could drop the Chiefs to sixth, or worse, right out of the six completely. And then they’d have to beat the Hurricanes in the final round to try and win back into a wildcard spot.

It’s more than squeaky bum time around the Waikato; the prospect of missing the finals is suddenly very real, and considering they’ve been entrenched in the six from pretty much day one this season, it’d be a massive collapse. Can their injury-depleted squad find the biggest win of their season in them?

The Highlanders are very, very real, people. Right now, at their best, they’re the only team in the comp who could beat the Hurricanes in a final in Wellington, and I was even thinking over the weekend that they could give that task a shake this weekend coming.

But Jamie Joseph has made the decision to sit his three All Blacks out from this game in one block, rather than splitting the final required rest game over the last two weeks. This is interesting. Is he conceding the Hurricanes game, in order to give the Blues both barrels in the final round en route the finals, or does he figure that the winged Canes will be tough to beat even with his team at full strength?

I wonder how much ‘should we have done this a month ago?’ has been going on in Dunedin this week?

What of the Waratahs? They should thump the Cheetahs this weekend, yet without three starting players and new players joining the squad both last week and this weekend coming, you just have to wonder. And this all without mentioning the evident discipline issues that threaten to ruin the Tahs’ season from within.

Forget the dual roles, the next few weeks might be Michael Cheika’s biggest coaching challenge in Australia to date. Between now and Saturday night, he’s got to somehow dial back the aggression, find the dulled or hidden spark, and get the title defence back on track.

The Stormers can lock down the South African conference and a home final with a win over the Lions this weekend. And they should do it, despite the Lions becoming the team everyone loves watching. The Lions are timing their run perfectly, but they will hit a blue and white wall this weekend.

And the Stormers should roll through the Sharks without too much issue in the final round, which with one point and one win over both the Waratahs and Brumbies, should be enough to lock down a home semi.

And that just leaves the Hurricanes. Here’s a sobering thought for Canes supporters: two losses over the last two rounds, and your team could easily drop into sudden death territory.

Will it happen? No, probably not. They cannot be overrun by the Australians or the South Africans, and with a nine-point gap over the Highlanders, a win this weekend will allow the New Zealand conference trophy-engraver to start a week early.

But the Hurricanes were curiously off the money last weekend, and I get the impression that we’ll look back on that game as the loss that won the Canes their maiden title.