The High Five: Super Rugby Round 3

Round 3 of Super Rugby has concluded featuring more surprises, controversy, disappointment and a couple more nail biters to chew over as we await next week’s action.

Yellow cards are a killer
Certainly, discipline is a key component within any side’s performance and with the officials looking to crack down on the slightest of offences; teams really have to be careful in today’s games as they are becoming more and more adept at taking advantage of any numerical on field advantage.

Even worse is when one’s side is forced down a man through poor play and in this round there were several examples, Michael Fatialofa’s ridiculous shoulder charge against the Chiefs and Ross Haylett-Petty’s lazy challenge on the Brumbies halfback will no doubt earn the ire of the individuals’ respective coaching staff.

I was starting to wonder whether the days of seeing heroic performances from teams reduced in manpower during a match were over, especially after watching Jordan Taufua’s careless swipe across Rob Simmons nose seemingly leaving his Crusaders side in the lurch.

However despite this, the Crusaders still managed to rally and overtake the Reds right on fulltime but regardless, the yellow card is becoming more and more difficult for sides to overcome and judging by some of the actions earning a few of these admonishments over the last three rounds, the players are adjusting rather slowly mentally.

Base of the post ‘try’ has to change
As the Crusaders were trying to lift themselves back into their match against the Reds on Saturday night, a try was scored by replacement halfback Bryn Hall after sustained attack in the 22 saw a ruck form directly next to the goal post, and he simply reached out from the back of the ruck and placed the ball at the base of the post.

A fair try, smart play as the rules currently state but hardly fair for any defending side, impossible to stop without conceding a penalty in the process.

It really needs to be looked at in my view and wouldn’t take much adjustment, simply needs to be outlawed. The ball must be ground over the try line, simple.

Southern men of steel
The Southern franchises within New Zealand pulled off a couple of remarkable victories this weekend, the injury-depleted Highlanders holding off the Blues at Eden Park while the Crusaders ran down the Reds in Brisbane, a last-minute penalty securing an unlikely victory.

Already injury-ravaged before the match, the Highlanders lost Waisake Naholo and Lima Sopoaga during the match and it seemed likely the Blues would eventually overtake the plucky Highlanders but they held on against all the odds to claim their first win of the season and begin their resurrection, their commitment and urgency on defence a highlight.

Over in Brisbane, after a horrid first half saw the Reds jump out to a good lead, the Crusaders ran them down, also suffering significant personal losses in the process, namely Israel Dagg and Seta Tamanivalu, made all the more astonishing in playing with 14 men for the last ten minutes of the match!

You can only admire the fight and spirit within the two cultures of these franchises.

Of course there is always the flipside to this discussion, and both the Blues and the Reds failed to cover themselves in glory and will be obviously disappointed with their respective performances and have plenty of work to do to get their seasons back on track.

Australian conference under fire
After three rounds so far, there is no hiding from the fact that the Australian conference has issues.

Not only is there a lack of results but the standard of play has been dismal at times and with the game struggling for popularity within the Australia, the outlook for the season is hardly rosy.

Hope will remain that we will see a resurgence but it is currently difficult to see much improvement across the board and it looks like the Australian conference will only supply one team again to this year’s finals by way of automatic qualification.

Add in the continued ‘scuttle butt’ of what SANZAAR are procrastinating over in terms of the future of the competition and likely increased derision around automatic playoff spots for conferences, and it seems a long season ahead for Australian Super fans.

All Black injuries
After watching Israel Dagg limp off the field in Brisbane, I had visions of All Black Coach Steve Hansen, sitting in his lounge throwing his remote through his TV screen then pressing the big red emergency button, setting off the alarms within each Super Rugby franchise to advise that all remaining current All Blacks will no longer be available for Super Rugby until July 15th, after the Lions tour.

In all seriousness, Hansen must have some concern over the injury toll, the outside backs certainly taking a hammering.

Before the weekend, Ben Smith was still unavailable due to concussion and Charlie Faumuina with a back issue, while during the round we witnessed Nehe Milner-Skudder, Waisake Naholo, Lima Sopoaga, Israel Dagg and Seta Tamanivalu leave their matches early.

There will be some nerves as we wait to hear the prognosis of the seriousness of their ailments.

With a Lions tour on the horizon, I can imagine Hansen will be anxiously waiting to hear how his stock is shaping up.

Some talking points to chew over after the third round of Super Rugby, and Round 4 is shaping up nicely with some more big derbies coming up and sure to be a few more nail biters.

Until next week then.