Super Rugby Round 16 (part one), plus one curly international question

It’s a real mixed grill we’re serving up for you this week, Roarers. An entrée of Super Rugby, an appetiser of our sure things, and the main course – the return of the big question for the June Internationals kicking off this weekend.

It means our heads are all other place trying to think of different competitions and Test Series and a British and Irish Lions Tour, and teams playing everywhere, but there’s one thing the four of us have in common with all of you: what a time to be a rugby fan!

So let’s crack into it, starting with a whip through the one Super Rugby game on this weekend.

Last week: Everyone else 5, Digger 4

Harry Jones
“The wind-tunnelled Cake Tin is the graveyard of good kickers, which is why the Canes don’t have one; but it’s a particular bad-wobbling dead-duck 2-iron you need in that maelstrom.

“The ‘Canes by a wounded drop goal. Plenty of niggle and plenty of sledge.”

Tip: Hurricanes.

Brett
So, the Hurricanes are back pretty close to full-strength. Milner-Skudder slots back on the wing like he’s been there the whole time; Julian Savea running out in his 100th game in the same week he and his wife announced they’re having a mini-bus… And the Capital is starting to ramp it up in preparation for the arrival of the Lions and all that comes with them.

But the Chiefs are desperate. And I like desperation at this time of year. Hell, I’m sweating on it…

TIPS: Chiefs.

Nobes
“Round 16 one game show, I must say a very interesting one, presents itself as a cracker.

“The powerful ‘Canes will come out as winners by small margin, something like the game played this past weekend between Crusaders and Highlanders. I know all the attention will be on the Lions tour but I will not miss this battle for anything in the world.”

TIPS: Hurricanes.

Digger
“’Canes by plenty.”

TIPS: Hurricanes

Brett’s note: I did say to keep the tips brief this week, so I kind of asked for that…

Get your tips in now – The Crowd’s tips will be revealed before kick-off in the first game of the weekend.

The Sure Thing

The one thing we’re all absolutely certain will happen over the course of this weekend. Well, pretty certain…

Digger
“’Canes will get a bonus point this weekend.”

Harry
“Steve Hansen detests Super Rugby right now.”

Nobes
“Jaguares will be playing with a different shirt this weekend and not against a SR team.”

Brett
With all that desperation being shared between the Chiefs and I, there really is only one sure thing this weekend:

‘Canes by plenty…

(AAP Image/SNPA, Ross Setford)

Return of the Big Question

Q: With the June Internationals commencing this weekend, what is the doomsday scenario for your respective national side for the forthcoming Tests, and why?

Harry
“There have been so many Bok doomsdays in the last year; we were force-fed pasta, sushi, chimichurra, rarebit, Kiwi genitalia, and Guinness in a rancid stew of self-delusional racially-poisonous political kak (a technical Saffa term).

“But I suppose there is one nightmare still: the French surrender.

“We win ugly. We win with Elton Jantjies making some dumb lucky play, after stinking up the park for 79 tackle-free minutes. We win using some trick play Allister ‘Kootchie Koo’ Coetzee claims he designed, but was in Heyneke Meyer’s 2013 playbook. France tries to play muscle ball. We muscle back.

We learn nothing. The coach is spared, and all critics are labelled apartheid nostalgics. We are stuck. Rugby World Cup 2019 is already doomed.

“I want to win. But not with a win that hastens and cements our ultimate lower tier status.”

Nobes
“The results and performance of the Jaguares in 2017 raise questions that the head coach of Los Pumas, Daniel Hourcade (who also supervises Jaguares), might find difficult to answer in this June window.

“Los Pumas have to face England twice and Georgia. On paper Georgia seems like a game the Pumas can win, but a second-string England (many of the players are with the Lions) will test the Pumas/Jaguares to the maximum of their potential.

“Here is time to remind you that a second-string France clearly won 27-0 over the Pumas in this same window last year. The question remains if the players that have been playing for Jaguares can perform and do better things on the field just by changing their shirt. These same forwards have found difficulties in all set pieces of the game, and I am sure that Eddie Jones, a super-smart coach, has taken notes on these weaknesses.

“Unless Hourcade have been able to fix all this in two weeks (seems like a monumental task), I am afraid that England will come out as a winner. On the other hand, the coaching staff for Pumas / Jaguares will feel the already hot heat to be raised by a few degrees if the performance of the squad on the field does not raise its level.”

Digger
“Simple, losing the series, especially white-washed; in fact, ten to nothing to the Lions would see a number scrambling away with tails between legs as the New Zealand provinces turn on each other, and calls for Steve Tew to resign will grow louder and louder as each province puts up their own nominee.

“Adding to this scenario would be to see several starting All Blacks careers ended due to concussion while the Lions tear us apart, exposing our inexperienced line up and ruining our set piece, losing the Eden Park record, blowing the stranglehold New Zealand seems to have over visiting teams to these shores.

(AAP Image/David Rowland)

“And all the while watching our SANZAAR partners quietly go about ruthlessly dismantling their opposition and lying in wait for the Rugby Championship as they can smell the blood in the water, with Michael Cheika in particular with plenty of advice for Steve Hansen on what he should have done better.

“And to really top it all off, all of the Hurricanes’ ABs will be injured and ruled out of the rest of Super Rugby to completely rip the undies.”

Brett
There’s two degrees of doomsday for the Wallabies the June.

Three lacklustre wins over Fiji, Scotland, and Italy, coming after huge missed tackle counts and handling errors galore, and long periods of trailing would only make an already terse Australian rugby fan angrier.

Like seriously angry; letters-to-the-prime-minister angry. Obviously, The Roar is well equipped and well used to angry Australian rugby fans, but even our servers might need reinforcing if the Wallabies prove that there is, indeed, no way to shake ordinary form.

But worse than that would be another loss to Scotland. I mean, just think about what that would… nope, I can’t even finish the sentence.

That’s your doomsday, right there.

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