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Looking to finish their best ever season in style, the Melbourne Rebels made the fatal mistake of wearing a Superman strip but playing like Lois Lane against the Force on Friday night.
Coach Tony McGahan will do well to ensure that they don’t forget their Kryptonite next time, should their marketing department pull the same stunt again.
After bagging the Force all season for playing unattractive rugby it is only fair to recognise their tenacious, intensive defensive effort, something which marks all of their best wins, but which has been absent for too much of this season.
Even so, my relationship with the Force remains like the one with my dentist – no offence but I’d rather find something else to do.
Another maligned species also came through the weekend well – referee Nick Briant handled a messy Reds versus Waratahs derby with plenty of poise and clarity, and Jaco Peyper and Chris Pollock both got potentially controversial decisions exactly right.
A vocal Canberra crowd gave Peyper plenty for sin-binning Jesse Mogg for an intentional slap down and then letting Crusader Luke Romano off for what seemed to be an identical offence.
Certainly Fox commentator George Gregan fanned the flames with his disapproval, however we can thankfully rest safe in the knowledge that Peyper knows the rules and Gregan doesn’t.
Quite simply, the incidents weren’t identical, it mattered not that Mogg didn’t make a downward slapping motion, he clearly threw an arm out to block the pass as opposed to making an attempt to catch it.
Romano by comparison made a scooping motion back towards him, trying to catch the ball – not even close to a yellow card offence.
The Brumbies offered exactly what they have all season, a very effective lineout maul and no inclination to test the opposition via counter attack or playing any rugby in their own half. Faced with winning three consecutive away games to take the title, they have two chances – slim and none.
They also have the most annoying player in Super Rugby, halfback Nic White, who at one point set off in search of the assistant referee to complain about a knock on call against them, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was his slowness at the base of the breakdown which caused the error. If White concentrated more on his own role instead of whining to the ref after seemingly every stoppage his world would surely be a much happier place.
Certainly he could learn plenty from his Hurricanes counterpart TJ Perenara, previously another halfback who also tried to take on too much on his own, then look for excuses when things didn’t go his way. Perenara this year has been a revelation, impressing again against the Chiefs with his speed to the breakdown and consistently fast and accurate clearances.
The Crusaders’ bonus-point win meant they eventually missed the finals by only a single point, also finishing above the top South African qualifier, but there will be no complaints from Christchurch. This Crusaders team was never good enough to win the title this season.
In New Plymouth, referee Pollock skirted controversy by awarding a penalty try to the Hurricanes and sending the Chief’s Tom Marshall to the bin for good measure.
Chiefs captain Liam Messam ran the argument that while in the act of trying to score, Hurricanes winger Julian Savea never at any time had control of the ball. Which was certainly true, however there was every chance that Savea would have got the ball under control before grounding, had Marshall not intervened illegally. And because the law states that the referee only has to consider that a try would probably have been scored, Pollock was quite correct in awarding the penalty try.
In Sydney it was both groundhog day and déjà vu all over again for the Reds as, for the second successive week, they dominated the early set pieces only to get shut out of the game by a physically dominant defence.
A couple of things are for certain, no 2015 Wallabies XV can afford to have James Horwill and Rob Simmons as the second row pairing, and code-hopper Karmichael Hunt is indeed a talented and capable player. Afforded more opportunities and a more positive environment for back play, one suspects he would be a sensation in New Zealand rugby.
Benefitting from the return of Tatafu Polota-Nau and Will Skelton, this was a very impressive show of strength by the Waratahs, ultimately hammering the Reds wide open. A weeks’ rest and they will be hard to toss in their home semi. On the negative side, even by his own modest standards halfback Nick Phipps had a very sloppy passing game, noticeably weak off his left hand.
The Bulls too will be glad for their rest, albeit much longer, playing just like a side coming off an arduous tour to Australia and New Zealand in their loss to the Cheetahs. Colossus Victor Matfield joins Richie McCaw and Dan Carter in hoping that his Test rugby swansong at the Rugby World Cup is far more successful than his final Super Rugby season.
I’m not sure there is enough petrol left in Matfield’s tank however, or if there is, it isn’t high octane enough to do the business.
The Sharks too will do well to regroup and consider just how a side with so much talent offering so little to this competition. A win is a win but with the Stormers effectively playing dead ahead of the finals, this one was hardly enough to redeem their season.
So what does the final round action mean for finals prospects? In all likelihood not very much. The top qualifiers do have a distinct advantage – as they should. The Hurricanes will certainly use the extra week to see if they can get their lineout to function, but they also have Ma’a Nonu and Beauden Barrett lurking in the wings to raise things up another notch.
Meanwhile, despite dropping games late in the season the Chiefs will go to Dunedin feeling that they have every chance. But after a couple of weeks on the road, the Highlanders will also enjoy getting back under their roof. This will be a cracking game.
A final word on attendances – perhaps due to the final Super Rugby appearances of many great players as much as the impending finals, the round saw excellent turnouts in Canberra, New Plymouth and Sydney. Healthy and encouraging all round, and a positive indicator heading into next weeks’ finals.