Rugbology June 27 2023.
Quick taps : Razor unbeaten with Crusaders, now for his ABs? - At least Razor in 2024 is there based on form - U20s undercooked - who comes after Retallick and Whitelock? - What more does Stevenson do
Super Rugby Final.
Shooting down the Waikato expressway, the pre game thinking revolved around the Crusaders ability to apply early pressure whilst playing faultlessly and how the Chiefs would handle this. One of the boys mentioned “yeh but the Chiefs are at home !” - my reply was “so are the Crusaders, they’ve won the last 6 ………” !
Great night for rugby too, no rain, little breeze and 2 teams that thoroughly deserved to be fighting it out. The Saders got their clinical start, the Chiefs fluffed some lines early on and copped a barrage of penalties which quickly had them a man down and under plenty of territorial pressure as the Red machine slipped through the gears seamlessly.
However, the Chiefs not only withstood the first quarter onslaught but managed to turn the momentum nicely by slipping Stevenson into an acre of space to post the first try. 25 mins gone, Chiefs up 10-3 and starting to crank but more Sader pressure and another yellow ……… this time Jacobsen who is a key part of the Chiefs front line. 15 mins later, 15-10 to the Saders at oranges.
The Chiefs weren’t out of it but had to start well and apply some pressure on the Saders and they scored a sensational try from a scrum 45 out that encapsulated the best of their season long gunslingers as Nankivell put Shooter Stevenson away on one of his silky runs culminating in a perfect pass to the flying Narawa. Brilliant but in the end not quite enough.
With only 8 penalties and no cards or team warnings - are the Crusaders perfect players or do the refs look the other way - whilst they got the rub of the green a few times especially a huge forward pass that whilst it didn’t lead directly to the Saders 2nd try, it gave them an attacking lineout instead of what should’ve been a Chiefs scrum feed near halfway !! And they scored but ………. they spent much more time in the Chiefs red zone bashing away at the goal line which at the end of the day is where many yellow cards result. The Chiefs were not as disciplined and largely unable to reciprocate.
Very little in it at the end of the day, but the Chiefs will feel they lost the game more than the Saders won it but they didn’t get enough of their game right on the night and as we all know, to beat the Crusaders in a final, you need to settle quickly, get on the front foot and eliminate mistakes.
At the final whistle, we didn’t linger and scuttled back up the motorway and over the Bombays to lick our wounds. Razor gets 7 on the trot and a record that will take some beating !
U20s World champs.
NZ struggled against Wales but managed to hold on for 1 point win. Wales the bottom team in the recent U20 6 nations proved to be a team the loose, error ridden kiwis couldn’t shake. Mind you the scrum went very well but lineout was a mess. Although its hard to gel whilst actually playing the tournament, the NZ boys looked like they were still playing for their school XVs where their expansive but inaccurate play was picked off by the Welsh who kept it simple by just getting stuck in! France up next and unless we get tighter and harder, it won’t be pretty.
All Blacks.
Now our attention turns to the ABs and the shortened Rugby Championship and the run up to the World cup. Given last years shortfalls, my expectations are not particularly high as we pretty much have the same players and the same coach.
The forwards are likely to go well under Jason Ryan although I have my reservations about the loose trios power but the backs in my mind are a mixed bag. I mean, who plays where ? Who’s at 10, is Jordie 12 or 15?, Reikos about as appropriate at centre as a politician at a truthfest and clearly Leicester and Narawa are the 2 form wingers so where does Jordan play - surely at 15 !! Dmac or Beauden on the bench? Surely the Havili experiment is over? Thing is, can we rely on Fuzzy and his boys to get it right and stick with it - the salad days of Dan, Ma’a, Conrad and Ben from Accounts are becoming a distant memory.
No surprise the Wallaby camp is talking up their RWC chances - “we’re gonna slip in and steal it maate” ! Its the Eddie Jones playbook as much as the Aussie way and whilst they have a favourable draw to at least a semi-final, unless they get really lucky, the rest of us will - Wallaby RWC 2023 winners , heaven forbid !!
That’s enough ……….. pass it on !