Phil Gifford: Six talking points from first round of Super Rugby Pacific

Leicester Fainga'anuku and the Crusaders already look like the team to beat. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

Phil Gifford presents six talking points from this weekend's opening round of the new Super Rugby Pacific competition.

Fasten your seatbelts

The Crusaders' 42-32 victory over the Hurricanes ranged from the sublime (the superb switch and pass by Bryn Hall that led to Leicester Fainga'anuku's second try) to the desperately unlucky (Ardie Savea's stunning 40 metre solo run for a try in the 55th minute called back for a whisper of a knock on by Ben May), to the untidy, when ambitious moves by both sides broke down, to the weird, with power shifts lurching back and forth throughout the game.

It was out of character for the Crusaders when, ahead 42-18 with 10 minutes to go, they didn't grind the Hurricanes to dust. Whether that was because of a lapse in concentration from the Crusaders, or a sign of steel in the Canes, may be easier to judge after the Canes have faced a powerful looking Blues next Sunday.

Right now my money will remain on the Crusaders staying the team to beat for any 2022 title aspirants.

Somewhere George Nepia and Bob Scott are smiling

New Zealand has a great history of producing electrifying fullbacks, in a line that runs from a teenaged Nepia stunning British crowds almost a century ago, through Scott, a twinkle-toed genius, to the sublimely gifted Christian Cullen.

In Dunedin two of the current stars, Jordie Barrett and Will Jordan, continued the proud tradition.

We knew Barrett was fearless in the air taking the high ball. We might not have expected big air from him scoring a try, but his acrobatic dive over a maul to score in the 74th minute had a tiny touch of a Nico Porteous double cork 1620.

Jordan never fails to excite either, and there is more than a hint of Cullen in the way he accelerates from an easy lope to a blinding sprint in the bemused blink of a defender's eye.

Talking of speed

A feature of both matches in New Zealand was how the referees hustled along forwards wanting a select committee meeting before every lineout, and that scrums, which last year were taking so long they made The Power of The Dog look as short as a TikTok video, returned to what they should be, an intense, but brief, physical contest to get the game started again.

So good on the refs, and good on the players, who have embraced the idea that a short scrum is a good scrum. Long may they continue to eliminate what had become the most frustrating aspect of the game.

Pita Gus Sowakula leaps over Aaron Smith en route to the try line. Photo / Getty

A slam dunk for Pita Gus

Chiefs' No.8 Pita Gus Sowakula has had an unusual journey to Super Rugby, via basketball for the Fijian national side, and a college basketball scholarship in Iowa. Basketball's loss has been rugby's gain.

In the Chiefs' 26-16 win over the Highlanders in Queenstown there was some classy loose forwards on the sodden ground, but none played better than Sowakula.

His running from the back of the scrum was exemplified in the first half when Sowakula saw a chance on the blindside and shot away so quickly he bamboozled one of the fastest thinking defenders in the game, Aaron Smith, to put the Chiefs out to an 18-6 lead going into halftime.

Oddly, Sowakula's yet to play a test for Fiji, but at 27 he looks in the prime of his rugby career, and international rugby wouldn't be a huge step for him.

Welcome back

As a lock, Brodie Retallick does everything required of him. As Steve Hansen once said of Brad Thorn, "Give him something to push, give him something to tackle, give him something to catch, and he's happy. And give him three feeds a day. Just make sure they're big ones."

Retallick's extra dimension is that inside the massive frame of a second rower lurks a skilled midfield back, who every so often breaks out with a breathtaking moment of pure class. It happened in the 47th minute of the Queenstown game when, making giant strides in the open like a jet powered giraffe, he read the situation so perfectly, that when in a double tackle he gently flicked a perfect backhand pass to his fullback, Emoni Narawa, the try that followed was a formality.

Retallick is 30, once the witching hour for players, but now, with Retallick's case a prime example, time away in the less demanding arena of Japanese club can extend rugby careers with no loss of potency.

The road can be rocky at the start

So many good people, like Sir Bryan Williams and Sir Michael Jones, have invested so much energy and enthusiasm into Moana Pacific becoming part of Super Rugby, it was disconcerting to see the Waratahs, in recent years the easy beats of the competition, despatching the Fijian Drua 40-10 in Sydney.

Being pioneers can be tough, as the Drua found out, and for Moana, if Covid and mandates allow, a first up game against the Chiefs could be as big a trial by fire as the Waratahs provided for the Fijian side.

But history sometimes offers some comfort, and it's worth remembering that when Super rugby began the Crusaders could not have been less like the machine they've become, a team that's developed so far under the remarkable Scott Robertson that making a final but not winning is now considered by their fans to be a disappointment.

In the first season of Super Rugby in 1996 the Crusaders were stone cold motherless last on the 12-team table, losing to the Blues 49-18 and the Reds 52-16. But character and the coaching skills of Wayne Smith took the team from the outhouse to the penthouse in just two seasons when the Crusaders won their first title in 1998.