It is only the second week of the new supersized 2016 Super Rugby season but there are glimmering of several story lines that could provide a dramatic climax around finals time.

First, the Brumbies have entrenched their position as the strongest team in the Australian Conference and, probably, the strongest side in the Australasian Group.

Second, there is a possibility that the Michael Cheika era of a Waratahs side that showed passion, aggression, flair and interesting new playing ideas, as well as a strong scrum, may well be over.

Third, the South African Group, with its two four-team conferences, need to be considered with more respect than many of us (me included) invested in it at the beginning of the season.

Fourth, the New Zealand Conference teams in their only two extra-conference games have lost out of New Zealand when the Hurricanes were thrashed 52-10 by the Brumbies at Canberra and in New Zealand when the Chiefs were defeated 36-32 by the Lions, that team’s first win ever at Hamilton.

I am not stating categorically that these potential story lines will inevitably play themselves out by the end of the 2016 Super Rugby tournament. New Zealand teams seem to start their Super Rugby campaigns more slowly, in general, than the best Australian and South African sides.

But there are signs that this Super Rugby season is not going to play itself out the way many of us thought it would. I know that I took a hammering in The Roar Tipping Competition this round, after being in the leading pack after the first.

I did get the Brumbies 35-Waratahs 15 result right. And the basis for this was my belief that the Waratahs set piece, especially their scrum, would have trouble after its drubbing by a Reds pack that sometimes did the destruction job with seven forwards.

The Waratahs went into the grudge match with a six forwards, two backs reserve bench. This suggested that the intention of coach Daryl Gibson was for the Waratahs to take the game to the Brumbies, with spirited and vigorous (and over-vigorous) forward play.

It is all very well, though, for coaches to fire up their teams and to stack the reserve bench so that confrontational play can continue for the 80 minutes of the match. But there has to be some skill from the tough forwards, in the scrums, lineouts, rucks and general play to complement the aggressive mode.

And this was the hallmark of the Cheika Waratahs. They were totally confrontational in every aspect of play. But this confrontational method was backed by smart and often new tactics and high skills.

So on Friday night the Waratahs came out breathing mindless fire and brimstone and promptly gave away four penalties in four minutes. A penalty a minute is the easiest way known of losing a rugby game.

The first two penalties were successfully conceded within 1.42 seconds of the match starting.

Then, some minutes later, Will Skelton was sent off for a dangerous tackle.

Admittedly, even in the Cheika era, Skelton was an occasional candidate and recipient of a yellow card. But this was madness on his part. Skelton is the only really big man in the Waratahs pack. His absence on the field allowed the fired-up Brumbies to smash around the Waratahs forwards.

Christian Lealiifano scorched through shortly after this for a try and in a match that is usually a tight affair the Brumbies had established a handy 8-0 lead.

The play of Lealiifano against the Waratahs and the Hurricanes has been of such a high quality that it is obvious he should have been in the 2015 Rugby World Cup squad and possibly the starting number 10, as Stephen Larkham seemed to suggest when he argued that the Wallabies back line should be an all-Brumbies line-up.

I know that this is hindsight. But journalists are prophets of the past rather than accurate predictors of the future. For the Wallabies in 2016 and going forward, I would suggest that if Lealiifano continues the form he is currently in, he must be considered as the starting number 10 for the Wallabies against England.

I know that Bernard Foley played splendidly in Rugby World Cup 2015. But that was then, this is now. Michael Cheika needs to select his next Wallabies sides looking forward rather than looking back.

Getting back to the Waratahs and the Brumbies, the match turned slightly towards the Waratahs when Tomas Cubelli, the Pumas ring-in for the Brumbies, had an attack of the Jakeballs and, for reasons that perplexed even Rod Kafer, put up four box kicks in four minutes.

The momentum of the Brumbies was stopped in its tracks. The Waratahs took a turn to launch some attacks. The Brumbies gave away a penalty for a later tackle under the pressure exerted by the Waratahs. Then a sweeping backline movement was given its proper polish with Israel Folau bursting through with an unstoppable run to the try line.

Four minutes after this, we had the first scrum of the match. The Waratahs feed was converted by the pack into a scrum win. I wrote down in my notebook, ‘Waratahs SCRUM WIN,’ as if this were a significant moment in the match.

It was not to be. Only four minutes later, there was a second scrum. This time what everyone feared and most of us predicted happened, the Waratahs were smashed. And from then on, the scrum became a nightmare for the Waratahs.

On the back of this scrum weakness, the Brumbies mounted pressure. Dean Mumm was given a yellow card for pulling down a driving maul. And although the Waratahs got the score back to 8-8, a scrum penalty against the Waratahs for collapsing was converted by Lealiifano and the Brumbies never relinquished their lead.

Now I come to a matter I have written about before. I feel a bit awkward raising it. You don’t like to bag players trying to make a go at professional rugby. But I have no doubt that a primary reason for the shambolic Waratahs lies with the new tighthead, Angus Ta’avao. From all accounts he is a fine team man. Every one likes him. But he was let go by the Blues at the end of last season.

Why would Daryl Gibson snap up a player in the crucial front row position who was not noted for his scrumming from another franchise who had let him go?

And why has the powerful Waratahs scrum become something of a powder puff outfit since 2015?

Compare this Gibson choice of a forward import (Ta’avao) with Cheika’s choice, the abrasive, match-winning Jacques Potgieter.

One of the products of the Cheika era was a Waratahs dominance over the Brumbies, traditionally along with the Waratahs, one of the top Australian Super Rugby sides.

The Waratahs last lost to the Brumbies 28-23 back in Round 5, 2014. I fear that we may be in for a season of that dreaded rugby staple, the Wobbly Waratahs.

I liked coach Stephen Larkham’s comments at the half-time when he noted that if the Brumbies kept to their structures and essentially what they were doing, the result would be fine for them. And it was.

This is a well-drilled, smart, efficient Brumbies side. It has impact and speed out wide and a loose forward trio that is about the best combination in the tournament.

The front row is extremely strong and accurate in their scrumming, with Scott Sio leading the way. Stephen Moore is in the best form of his career. And when the giant Rory Arnold is out, the Brumbies bring in someone about as tall, Blake Enever, who then played a storming game before he went off injured.

The mark of championship sides is that the good players play better then before in them. Players coming into the side, too, exceed all the expectations about their abilities. This is what is happening with the Brumbies.

This is what happened with the Cheika-Waratahs.

Just get Cubelli to put away the box kick and allow the B52 Brumbies to pulverise the opponents seems to be the appropriate game plan, it seems to me, for the rest of what looks like being an extremely successful season for the franchise.

The Reds won two home games last season. They lost their first home to the Western Force, 22-6, on Saturday and it is hard to see them improving on what was a dismal 2015 season.

Some senior rugby people involved with Queensland rugby and the two Queensland greats on the ARU board, Paul McLean and John Eales, need to do some explaining to the disenchanted rugby public in Queensland and throughout Australia. They need to tell them just why Richard Graham won an appointment to what should be a premier coaching job in Australia with a Super Rugby record of 28 per cent wins.

Rather than encouraging players to play better than they imagined they could, Graham has seen play below expectations of their ability. Moreover, gifted players like Liam Gill can’t wait to get out of the joint. This is no recipe for a successful coaching term.

As it happens, Michael Foley, the coach of the Force, has a Super Rugby record of winning 31 per cent. But to his credit, he has the Force playing rugby that could in time result in wins against strong opponents. They are keeping the ball in hand. Oppositions are being challenged at the advantage line.

The advantages of keeping the ball in hand and running at defences rather than giving the ball away by kicking over them are shown by the terrific results and play of the South African sides.

After conceding an initial successful penalty to the Melbourne Rebels and surviving a brain-storm by Adam Thomson in planting a ball over the Bulls try line on his foot (shades of Ardie Savea), the Bulls went on to score six unanswered tries for a 40-3 lead.

The Rebels came back to force a score line of 45-25. But Melbourne’s media release headline about the game was misleading: ‘Bulls hang on to beat a spirited Rebels’. In fact, the Rebels had to hang on to stop being beaten by a truly overwhelming margin.

To their credit, though, the Rebels scored four tries to six and denied the Bulls of a bonus point for three try+ margin.

It encourages attacking rugby if any side that scores four tries gets an automatic bonus point. That was the old system. this new three try+ system actually rewards winning (not that bad a thing) in that the Rebels like all the losing four-try teams got no points out of the match.

Under the old system, it was possible for a losing team that score four tries and got within seven points of their opponents to get two points and the winners to get four points.

To go with the excellent play of the Bulls was an even more impressive performance by the Lions to defeat the Chiefs at Hamilton 36-32.

I never thought I would write this sentence but, the way the Bulls and Lions played, hard, uncompromising forward play, direct running in the backs, smashing tackling and eager chasing of kicks made for terrific viewing.

The Chiefs, like the Hurricanes against the Brumbies, had massive problems with their scrums. Dave Rennie suggested ever so gently that referee Andrew Lees might have got some aspects of his scrum management wrong.

There was the spectacle, too, of Tawera Kerr-Barlow being penalised twice for crooked scrum feeds. The problem, apparently, was that he stood beside his prop and consequently was feeding the ball into the Chiefs channel.

It seemed to me, though, that the Lions halfback, indeed all halfbacks, do the same thing.

But there is something deeper in all of this, I reckon. The Chiefs captain Sam Cane, who is being groomed to be the next Richie McCaw, as a number 7 and captain, had little impact on the steam-roller running of the Lions forwards. He was also inarticulate in pointing out to the referee that Kerr-Barlow was penalised for doing what his Lions counterpart did.

I noticed Cane having the occasional chat to the referee. But it made little impact on either the penalty count.

Then there was the terrible tactical mistake made by Aaron Cruden towards the end of the game when the Chiefs were chasing an unlikely win. Behind on points and with the win behind him, Cruden kicked a short 22. The Lions snaffled the ball and ran in a crucial try.

I don’t think Dan Carter would have done something as stupid as this. And, if he wanted to, I don’t think McCaw would have let him do it.

The Chiefs are off to South Africa to play the Kings next weekend. It is a measure of the lack of quality in the Chiefs play against the Lions that some experts are predicting a Kings victory.

That is unlikely. But then, it was highly unlikely that the Lions would beat the Chiefs at Hamilton, too.