Have the Lions handed the Super Rugby title to the New Zealand teams?

After a pulsating final round of the 2016 Super Rugby tournament, the quarter-final play-offs are finally known.

There were two ferocious New Zealand derbies, the Lions throwing away a crucial victory against the Jagueras by keeping their starting side in Johannesburg, the Stormers raging to victory over the hapless Kings, the Waratahs going down to the Blues with hardly a shot being fired and a lucklustre Brumbies side toughing out a victory over the weak Force.

» View the full 2017 Super Rugby draw right here

The finals are as follows:
Fri 22 July Brumbies (4) v Highlanders (5) at GIO Stadium, Canberra.
Sat 22 July Hurricanes (1) v Sharks (8) at Westpac Stadium, Wellington.
Sun 23 July Lions (2) v Crusaders (7) at Emirates Airlines Park, Johannesburg.
Sun 23 Stormers (3) v Chiefs (6) DHL Newlands, Cape Town.

The obvious point to make about this play-offs schedule is that three of the New Zealand teams (Hurricanes, Crusaders, Chiefs) play one of the three South African sides (Sharks, Lions, Stormers), and the fourth team, the Highlanders play the Brumbies.

This gives the New Zealand – who have been rampant in 2016 – an outside chance of producing all the semi-finalists.

Or, if hubris infects them, the possibility of having no teams in the semi-finals.

Or, as I believe, probably three teams in the semi-finals.

Those three teams, it seems to me, will be the Highlanders, the Hurricanes and the Chiefs.

The Crusaders are, historically, the best travelling side in Super Rugby. But I do not fancy their chances against the Lions. They are the most vulnerable New Zealand team in the quarter-finals.

In an intense, bruising and sometimes explosive match, the Crusaders were monstered by the Hurricanes at Christchurch 35-10, with the visitors enjoying their biggest ever victory there and securing a crucial bonus point for their five tries to one.

The Crusaders scrum in the first half gave the home side penalties and a set piece dominance. But a try to T.J.Perenara right on half-time turned the tide.

In the second half the famed Crusaders composure collapsed. Israel Dagg dropped a pass with the line wide open and the Crusaders could not stop the relentless pressure from the brutal and sometimes sensational Hurricanes.

Right on time, this pressure forced a fifth try that entrenched an unlikely (before the match) bonus point victory that took the Hurricanes to the top of the Super Rugby ladder.

The Crusaders go to Johannesburg with injuries dogging Andy Ellis, their veteran and so far irreplaceable half-back. Nemani Nabolo has a calf strain and Johnny McNicholl has a dislocated finger. There goes the Crusaders back attack, such as it is. And Sam Whitelock is ill, to complete a circle of medical woe for the Crusaders.

The Lions have a terrific scrum which will negate the major offensive weapon of the Crusaders. They have a strong attacking, ball-in-hand game with great finishers and a bruising defensive game. They are rested while the Crusaders have to travel the long journey to Johannesburg from Christchurch.

There is one other factor, too, that works against the Crusaders and that is the Todd Blackadder’s record as a coach. In the Super Rugby context, his teams do not finish off the job. It is hard to see why this is, but it is so.

The thing I notice is that the Crusaders have rarely brought anything different to their play in the Blackadder era. They have relied on strong set pieces, east-west passing attacks rather than north-south, and the occasional brilliance from Nadolo or Dagg.

A strong, physical defensive side like the Hurricanes (and the Lions, presumably) can handle this familiar attacking mode, if their set piece holds up.

The Lions will be fit enough for this task. But they have forfeited the top place on the ladder to achieve this outcome. It is all history now but with a couple of the loose forwards and some of the regular outside backs, a victory against the Jagueras would have been accomplished.

That victory would have given the Lions the top place on the ladder and a quarter-final against the Sharks, a much easier contest than playing the Crusaders, even if they have to travel from New Zealand.

More importantly, it would have ensured that if the Lions won their semi-final, the 2016 Super Rugby final would have been played in Johannesburg.

As it is, if the Hurricanes win their quarter-finals against the Sharks and their semi-final, they play a home final in Wellington for the second year in a row.

The other consequence of the Lions own goal loss against the Jagueras is that the draw would have pitted two New Zealand teams, the Hurricanes and the Crusaders at Wellington, against each other. This sort of mutual destruction by the New Zealand teams could only help the chances of the Lions, in particular.

We are in the realms of what-might-have-been in all this speculation.

The fact is that a sort of justice has been done for the New Zealand sides to reward them for their terrific tournament results, with four teams recording 50 points or more.

The Brumbies did what they had to do to beat the Force 24-10 on a viciously cold night in front of 9,387 true believers.

The media coverage called the victory “uninspiring.” That is an under-statement. It was a poor performance. The backs stood too deep. There was hardly any penetration from them. The skills and the pace of the game were pedestrian.

It was as if the players were intent on not getting injured and getting the one point they needed to move on with as little expenditure of energy, physical or mental, as possible.

Stephen Larkham was honest enough to admit after the match that they were outplayed by the Highlanders earlier in the year. “I think we’ve learnt from this.”

Hopefully, the Brumbies and the coaching staff have. The Highlanders have a gritty defensive game that is occasionally lit up brilliantly with irresistible ensemble attacks from deep within their own half.

The Brumbies this year have scored seven consecutive wins over Australian opposition. They defeated the Hurricanes 52-10 in their first match of the season. But since then it has been a downhill slide against New Zealand teams culminating in a pathetic loss two weeks ago to the Blues at Eden Park.

As the Waratahs showed this weekend, Eden Park, even when the Blues rather than the All Blacks are playing, is a grave yard for Australian teams.

Last year, the Highlanders came to Sydney and knocked the Waratahs out of the finals. They are the sort of uncrushable team that the methodical Brumbies find extremely hard to defeat. But at least the quarter-final will be in Canberra where the Brumbies do have a record of some success, rather than Dunedin where the result would certainly go against them.

There is a likelihood that David Pocock could return for this match wearing a sort of mask across his damaged cheek. It is true that the Brumbies are not the same team without Pocock. Can his return provide the belief and the intensity that have been missing since he was injured?

The last quarter-final of the round involves the Stormers and the Chiefs. There has been a lot of talk (justified in my view) about the good fortune of the Stormers not to have played a New Zealand team in the round robin matches.

The Highlanders defeated the Chiefs at Dunedin 25-15 to sneak their way past their opponents on the table. This was a terrific match full of hard-hits, hard-running, intensity leading to the occasional outbreak of vigorously thrown handbags and some sensational break-out running from both sides.

You would think that the Chiefs might have too much firepower around the field with their passionate Total Rugby game for the Stormers. My one caveat on this is that the Chiefs can sometimes appear to be very shonky at scrum time, as they were in their home loss early in the season against the Lions.

We come now to a curious (in my opinion) SANZAAR Statement: 2016 Super Rugby Final Series sent out to the rugby media last Thursday.

The statement makes the point that the competition conference format was agreed to by the SANZAAR Executive Board “that oversees Super Rugby.”

The system of the four conference winners automatically allows for them to progress to the quarter finals as hosts and is “consistent with similar competition structures in the world of sport.”

“This year through this system four New Zealand teams will qualify for the finals … This is due reward for these team based on their regular season results.

“Unfortunately there has been conjecture that the hosting criteria for the quarter-finals is unfair, largely based on the exceptional form of the New Zealand teams. However, SANZAAR stands by the existing qualification process. A tournament’s qualification criteria cannot be determined by one year’s results in isolation.”

Regular readers of The Roar will not be surprised that I take exception to this SANZAAR nonsense.

To begin with, I doubt if there is a competition structure quite like the present Super Rugby format, with its two Groups (Australasian ten teams and South Africa eight teams), four conferences (New Zealand Conference five teams, Australian Conference five teams, South Africa Conference (1) four teams, South Africa Conference (2) four teams), with some teams playing other sides twice and other teams not at all.

Second, it is not unfortunate that there is conjecture about the quarter-final system being unfair. It is unfair. The Stormers are ranked third of the Super Rugby ladder on 51 points. The Highlanders on 52 points are ranked fifth and the Chiefs, on 51 points along with the Stormers, are ranked sixth!

The reason for the Stormers high ranking is that the eight-team South Africa Group has two designated finals spots, one each for South Africa Conference 1 and 2.

The semi-finals home ground advantage will be worked out according to the seeding. It won’t happen this time but there could come a time when a South African Conference winner will record a low tally of qualifying points and have a home semi-final against a side from Australia or New Zealand that scores a higher tally of competition points.

The really fair system for SANZAAR to adopt is to allow a designated home final in the quarter-finals for the South African Group, one for the Australian Conference and a third for the New Zealand Conference.

This system of a designated home final for the three main markets of Super Rugby, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand was as reform brought in under the impetus of John O’Neill when he was the chief executive of the ARU.

The O’Neill System then allowed for five wild card finalists, with the fourth leading team having a home quarter-final.

After the quarter-finals, the competition points accumulated decided the home ground advantage in the semi-finals and the final.

As it happens, this system would have the same teams in the finals as there are this season. But instead of two home quarter-finals in South Africa, there would be two home quarter-finals in New Zealand.

This would be a much fairer “due reward” for “exceptional form of the New Zealand teams” than the current system, with its obvious bias towards the South Africa Group.

This year the system is unfair to the New Zealand teams. In another year the system will be unfair to the Australian teams. It will always be biased in favour of the South African Group.

Where are the ARU and the NZRU in working together to change a system that discriminates against their teams?