The Wrap: New Zealand Super Rugby conference flexes its muscles

Four rounds into the 2016 Super Rugby season, more crossover games between conferences provides an opportunity to better assess how teams are travelling.

Compared to the New Zealand conference at least, the news for Australian franchises isn’t great.

It’s not as if the Force played particularly badly or below expectation in Palmerston North, just that beyond serial pest Matt Hodgson, they didn’t have the gunpowder to pose a serious threat to the slowly improving Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes still look some distance off last year’s form, but captain Dane Coles made a solid return and impressive replacement Willis Halaholo staked a strong claim for a start in the midfield.

In Sydney the champion Highlanders got their big loose forwards up and running, rolling to a 30-0 lead over a listless, error-strewn Waratahs. A slight drop in intensity and a Michael Hooper-led resurgence brought the Waratahs back to within a try, but the Highlanders ultimately ended up in that happy place of banking the win but still with genuine issues to work on.

As if inspired by David Pocock vacating the Wallabies No.7 jumper for next season, Hooper was inspirational, right across the field; pilfering, tackling and charging into space with the ball. Coach Daryl Gibson should haul his players in, point to Hooper and simply say “what he does.”

The Waratahs have a half-decent team lurking in there somewhere, but need more cohesion, energy and purpose from their other ball runners. Compared to Elliot Dixon and Liam Squire, and Jed Holloway for that matter, Cliff Palu looks to be on old and tired 33 year-old legs.

Their late comeback was punctuated by two interesting decisions by the officials, firstly referee Nick Briant confusing 107kg Waratahs replacement prop Tom Robinson with 82kg Highlanders halfback Aaron Smith, and waving him through for a try, then TMO Ian Smith making history with the first ever decision using new x-ray technology, in determining Holloway’s hat-trick try under a mass of players.

If that wasn’t confusing enough, the weird metre flew off the scale in Pretoria with, firstly the Bulls, and then the Sharks refusing to win a match they both could have; which ultimately rendered their 16-16 draw a fair and just result.

The Bulls certainly had the best of it for most of the match; they played the most rugby and had the game’s best player, fleet-footed fullback Warrick Gelant, who showed there is more to his game than booting ateammate up the backside.

But with Francois Brummer struggling to find the posts and too many forwards spilling the ball in contact, the Bulls found, as the Stormers did last week, that the Sharks aren’t anything if not tenacious, eventually working themselves to a three point lead with time almost up.

At which point Tiaan Schoeman, his shocking blonde hair standing out like a lighthouse on a pitch-black headland, stepped up and nailed a 51-metre penalty to tie the match, and that’s where it should have ended. Incredibly, the Bulls secured the final kick-off but naively went one-out on the hit-up, money for turnover jam for Marcel Coetzee, who was duly rewarded with what now was surely the match-winning penalty.

(The Bulls could do no worse than to compare their lame effort with the Highlander’s master-class in closing their match down with impregnable hit-ups. Ugly but effective.)

Sharks fly-half Joe Pietersen, hitherto perfect with the boot, inexplicably missed from point-blank range, and fans and players alike were left gasping in shock. Although not as much as Pietersen; if there wasn’t a ghost of Loftus Versfeld before, there is one now.

Rounding out the weirdness, a word for the Sharks’ jersey numbers, most of which didn’t survive the pre-game warm-up, let alone the match itself. Funnily enough, the straggly bits of white material flapping around on the player’s backs bore uncanny resemblance to the white balls used in the Australia versus New Zealand T20 match earlier in the night.

Saturday afternoon didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. The Rebels were good enough for a 41-5 win in Tokyo, but really, they look like they need a rest. The Crusaders gave some of their big guns a rest, although not Nemani Nadolo, who proved to be a mismatch for the battling Kings.

After which rugby was temporarily put on hold for a date at the Forum with the sublime Tedeschi Trucks Band; brother Derek and sister Susan and 12-piece band at the top of their game. Like all great athletes, slide guitarist Derek Trucks makes the difficult look ridiculously easy – running through stunning licks just like he was nonchalantly drilling a 40-metre drop-goal in a rugby world cup final.

Later, off tape, the Reds versus Blues was always going to be a massive come-down, although to be fair, both sides gave the ball plenty of air. With four All Blacks in the starting pack the Blues would have been better to engage the Reds pack; expecting too much from 19 year-old debutant Reiko Ioane. Handling errors killed them, although getting on the wrong side of referee Andrew Lees didn’t help either.

The Reds will be delighted with their scrum, and their improved ability to penetrate, Jake McIntyre’s second half breakout try as good as any this season – at least until Matias Moroni’s thrilling effort on Sunday morning. In the end, a 25-25 draw seemed fair enough.

(For the statistically minded, Lees is now 22-38 in penalties for and against New Zealand sides this season. Make of that what you will.)

For the first 60 minutes the Stormers and Brumbies played a match chock-full of high-quality and intensity, until the ending fizzled out off the back of two unsatisfying incidents. Brumbies replacement hooker Josh Mann-Rea only has himself to blame for leaving his side a man short; TMO Marius Jonker and referee Jaco Peyper have nobody to blame for tying themselves in knots twisting a dropped ball by winger Dillyn Leyds into a try.

Peyper, who otherwise had a fine match, would be well advised to avoid exotic interpretations of the detail of the law and instead apply some common sense. In cricketing terms Leyds had given himself out and already walked. Thankfully and luckily, the call didn’t alter the outcome of the match.

More nonsense came in the form of a half-full Estadio Jose Amalfitani in Buenos Aries constituting a ‘sell out’ crowd for the Jaguares first home match. These guys are welcome to do my tax return any time they like.

The Jaguares were their own worst enemy, mixing exhilarating ensemble rugby and scrum power with silly handling errors and slack kick-chasing. But the Chiefs deserve great credit; always a danger with ball in hand, they got value from their bench, and Sam Cane was a massive physical presence in defence.

They would have been excused resigning themselves to defeat after Moroni’s late stunner, but their superb counter-response try to Brad Webber was a worthy climax to a splendid match. If such a pulsating finish doesn’t help sell out the other half of the stadium next week, there is something wrong in Argentina.

With the New Zealand conference so tightly contested, it is essential that these sides collect as many points as possible in the crossover matches. The Highlanders and Chiefs both had very difficult assignments, but got the business done.

It’s not as if the other sides need any reminding, but the New Zealand conference is red hot and won’t be cooling off any time soon.