Mark Tele'a of the Blues celebrates his try with Taufa Funaki. Photo / Photosport
OPINION
Phil Gifford is a Contributing Sports Writer for NZME. He is one of the most-respected voices in New Zealand sports journalism.
As the sharp end of Super Rugby Pacific approaches, the Blues made another powerful statement in their 47-13 dismantling of the Highlanders at Eden Park.
Without a host of first string players, the Blues stuck to their favoured approach, using powerful forward drives to send hooker Kurt Eklund and prop Ofa Tu’ungafasi over for three of the first five tries.
It’s hard to spot weak links in the Blues. Against the gutsy Highlanders they showed the strength of their reserve bench.
Under the stern eye of new coach Vern Cotter, the forwards are a bruising, relentless force. In Harry Plummer, who kicked six out of seven conversions on Saturday night they have a goal-kicker who can be totally relied on. And when Mark Telea returns to join Caleb Clarke on the wings there will be two brilliant, world-class line breakers on hand.
If, as seems extremely likely, the Blues play all their knockout games at Eden Park, fans who have been waiting to applaud a title victory since 2003 may finally have their wishes come true.
In theory, the Hurricanes – at home in Wellington against Moana Pasifika – should have romped to victory, especially after leading 19-0 after just 23 minutes.
Tries for the ‘Canes from two 21-year-olds, hooker Raymond Tuputupu, whose excitement level was off the scale, in the 10th minute, and then prop Siale Lauaki in the 19th might have knocked the fight out of Moana.
In fact the final 32-24 win for the Canes was a real struggle, that needed a stroke of individual brilliance from their loose forward Peter Lakai, who in the 53rd minute with his team ahead by just two points, charged down a kick by Moana’s William Havili, and dashed to the line to touch down the bouncing ball. Lakai, another 21-year-old, must be nudging himself towards an All Blacks call-up.
If you believed in rugby gods, it’d be hard not to believe they’re wreaking a brutal revenge on the Crusaders this year for all the pain the men from Christchurch have inflicted on opponents over three decades of Super Rugby.
The Crusaders have forever dashed other teams’ dreams, from wrecking the party at Tony Brown’s place in Dunedin in 1999, to rendering Chiefs’ co-captain, Brad Weber, almost mute from disappointment after the Crusaders won last year’s final in Hamilton.
With roles flipped this year, there was a hint of Greek tragedy, so weird it almost tipped into farce, in the last-minute penalty try for the Brumbies in Canberra, that gave them a 31-24 win over the Crusaders.
Was referee Ben O’Keeffe correct to decide that Quinten Strange had illegally slapped the ball dead with his hand? Yes. Did the penalty try then feel like natural justice, given that for the previous 80 minutes the Crusaders had been the better team? Never.
The rampant Blues head to Christchurch next Saturday night. To make the first knockout round of eight the Crusaders have to win, and have the Fijian Drua and the Force lose. Given the sort of luck the Crusaders have had in 2024, don’t mortgage the house on the stars aligning for them.
There were some spooky moments for the Chiefs in their last gasp 26-23 win against the Rebels in Melbourne.
You couldn’t blame the Rebels’ players for losing interest, signed as they are to a club on the verge of collapse, wracked by claims of boardroom mis-management, with debts now totalling $25 million.
But in what might be their last ever match at home the Rebels actually battled as if they had title aspirations, and it took a 78th minute penalty by Damien McKenzie for the Chiefs to sneak home.
Among the scary sights for Chiefs’ supporters was seeing Rebels’ wing Glen Vaihu, shrug off Chiefs’ fullback Shaun Stephenson for a sixth-minute try as easily and quickly as a small child tears off birthday-present wrapping paper. Exactly where the Chiefs sit in the run home to the title will soon be clear. In their last two round-robin games they play the Canes in Wellington next Friday, and then the Blues at Eden Park on King’s birthday weekend on Saturday, June 1.
In the battle for eyes on screens and bums on seats, figures released by Sky TV showed what a huge drawcard the Warriors and the NRL in general have been this year.
In the first 10 rounds of the NRL, 1.59 million Kiwis watched on TV, and the most popular game, when the Warriors beat the Raiders 18-10, on March 22, drew 469,800 viewers.
What hasn’t been much publicised is that the first 10 rounds of Super Rugby had a slightly bigger audience, averaging 1.67 million viewers a week, and the most watched game, when the Crusaders beat the Chiefs, 37-26, on March 29, had 482,000 viewers.
Do the figures mean rugby can relax? Of course not. While Super Rugby had an 11 per cent increase in its audience, the NRL had a 14 per cent bump.
But the idea that the Warriors, as loved as they are, can draw bigger audiences than the All Blacks, as Warriors CEO Cameron George predicted before the World Cup last year, is nonsense. All Black tests consistently draw more than a million viewers.
Phil Gifford has twice been judged New Zealand sportswriter of the year, has won nine New Zealand and two Australasian radio awards, and been judged New Zealand Sports Columnist of the year three times. In 2010 he was honoured with the SPARC lifetime achievement award for services to sports journalism.