How the NZ Super sides fared tactically, and the ruck shambles that threatens a RWC mess

Last week I closed with a concern on the refereeing of the breakdown, and thought best to lead with it this time. It is the single most important part of our game, with ruck counts up in the hundreds, and we are seeing zero consistency from our officials.

Two things you can take to the bank – you are not going to be rewarded with turnovers if you have another player on the floor, and there is clearly a big focus on making sure hands are not on the floor before going for the ball.

They are big positives, and I’m happy to see these clamped down on. However, the rest of it is a mess, players off their feet, third man in going for the ball, second efforts by the man already on the ground – in short everything possible to slow the ball down in a sport clearly headed in the opposite direction.

We in the south are not alone. Luke Pearce copped some noise for his breakdown performance in the weekend and when watching the northern referees they interpret differently in domestic football, to Champions Cup to the internationals.

There was a refereeing conference in London last week. Let’s hope this was addressed because the RWC is heading for a mess right now.

The match of the weekend was at Forsyth Barr with the Drua visiting a misfiring Highlanders side beset by an injury list rivalled by Agincourt.

Apparently, the Super Rugby draw, has been outsourced to a company in the United States and at odds of 165 to 1 the Mainlanders copped 3 of the best and most physical 4 sides in the comp on the bounce in the opening three weeks, and surprise surprise, end up with as many players on the pine as they have on the park.

Could it be that difficult to stick in a line of code that says sides should only face two of these sides consecutively? A whole season can be ruined inside the opening month. The Hurricanes will end the series with these three on the bounce for good measure.

After having five changes from the side announced Thursday to what ran out on Saturday, the Highlanders flew in the face of all commonsense, taking the Drua head on with a game played at real pace and with width; the game was run off 9 with Aaron Smith banking a try and four assists and the step ups all performed strongly.

Leni Apisai who was the Blues fourth choice rake previously’, was immense, young Bay of Plenty gun Nikora Broughton demonstrated New Zealand’s loose forward depth, Mitch Hunt (tackling aside) played his part and Sam Gilbert who moved from 15 to 12 after yet another injury in the opening 15 minutes, looked like he has played there forever.

Having been the first side to face the Drua in Fiji last year it was nice to get them back in an environment where hand warmers would have been part of the kitbag rather than iced towels.

I was on West Island this week so went along to see the February champs vs the visiting Chiefs. It’s a wonderful new venue and it makes one wonder how the Christchurch City Council still don’t have a replacement for Lancaster Park up and running a full 12 years after the earthquake.

Sometimes scoring early is a bad thing and the Chiefs fell into this trap with both Bryn Gatland and Damian McKenzie in the 10 slot of thinking they could simply pass the ball around the Waratahs, when over and over their lack of directness let the Waratahs defence simply slide across the park and wait for an errant pass before hunting the ball.

I lost count of the number of times the Chiefs went right through the hands only to find it was a straight one on one between the ball carrying winger and his defending opposite. It took the introduction of Shaun Stevenson to find the space on the floor behind the 14-man Waratah line that had been there all night.

Tactically the big pluses came from coach Darren Coleman of the home team.

 (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

The loose forward trio played a lot closer together and a narrower this week with huge defensive shifts put in by Michael Hooper and Lachie Swinton, ably assisted by lock Ned Hanigan as they clocked up 45 tackles between them while in the midfield the return of Joey Walton delivered some much-needed defensive organisation as well as a further 15 individual tackles made for only a single miss.

One can only consider that this would have been a far better structure for the Waratahs to have started the season with.

In Christchurch the Brumbies took the opportunity to a rest a number of their Wallabies in favour of ensuring the wins later this year that will get them a home semi-final. A perfectly understandable decision from the Head Coach but with maybe 12 premium games in the round robin part of the season, it does seem a waste for the comp, especially as the home side are cruelled by an injury list that won’t be remedied until after the bye in round 8 and a full strength Brumbies would have been a real shot at pursuing the big Trans-Tasman wins the national coach is so keen on.

As it was, the Brumbies tight five could simply not contribute enough either side of the ball to put any pressure on the home side and if you come to Christchurch, lose the gain-line, and tackle at 82% then there can only be one outcome.

The highlight of the match was a ripping right to left pass from Brumbies flanker Rory Scott to find of the season Corey Toole for another wide out Brumbies score, which is becoming something of a habit.

The remaining two New Zealand sides showed that this competition is already divided into three parts, five sides fighting for those top four home quarters, five sides eyeing off the remaining finals positions with a couple of laggards.