Winger Peter Hewat surpassed a scoring record as New South Wales rallied from a 10-point deficit and beat South Africa’s Bulls 23-13 on Saturday to reach the Super 12 final for the first time.
The New South Wales Waratahs travel to Christchurch next week to face the four-time champion Canterbury Crusaders, who thrashed Wellington 47-7 in Friday’s semifinal.
New South Wales had only ever been to the semifinals once — in 2002 — in a decade of the Super 12 rugby union competition but was a hot favourite ahead of the Sydney Football Stadium semifinal because of the Bulls’ dismal record of only one win on Australian soil.
Hewat kicked three penalties and two conversions for a personal haul of 13 points, while Morgan Turinui and Nathan Grey crossed for tries.
Hewat broke Matt Burke’s Waratahs’ record (158 points) for a Super 12 season, lifting his personal haul to 165 points with a match remaining in 2005.
Hewat, a Queensland discard who made his Super 12 debut at age 28, said he was ecstatic to better the mark of former Wallaby fullback Burke.
”Matt Burke is a legend here, so I’m happy with that,” Hewat said. The Bulls ”came out firing and kept us in our own half, it made it hard for us to run the ball. But we kept our patience and made the most of our opportunities when it counted.”
Waratahs skipper Chris Whitaker said the match was more of a grafting defensive encounter than an attacking spectacle, enhancing New South Wales’ record as the best defensive team in the competition this season.
”It definitely wasn’t pretty, that’s for sure,” he said. ”They put a lot of pressure on our set pieces, line-outs and stuff, and we struggled to get anything going from there, but once again our defence held up pretty well.
”The last few games we started pretty poorly and that’s definitely something we have to look at against the Crusaders, because they can blow you off the park in the first 10 or 15 minutes. So, we’ll definitely have to be on the ball in the first 10,” next week.
The Waratahs dominated possession until the 11th minute, when the Bulls scored against the run of play.
Fullback Johan Roets scored the opening try for the Bulls, charging down opposite number Mat Rogers’s attempted clearing kick from behind his try line and diving on the rebound in-goal.
Morne Steyn added the conversion and two penalties to give the Bulls a 13-3 lead after 25 minutes.
Turinui turned the game when he kicked ahead and regathered after a terrible blunder by the Bulls backs three minutes before half-time, then running 20m untouched to cross for the Waratahs’ first try.
Hewat added the conversion to make it 16-13 at half-time.
Center Grey crashed over near the posts five minutes after the break following a line-out 5m out and Hewat converted to give the Waratahs a winning 10-point buffer.
The Pretoria-based Bulls won six consecutive games going into their first Super 12 semifinal after losing 42-12 to the Waratahs in Sydney in March.
Coach Heyneke Meyer praised his players for breaking all the club records this season.
”We’re disappointed right now, but we gave it everything we had,” Meyer said. ”That try just before half-time was a soft try — it really cost us the game.
”But their defence was superb — we lost to a quality side.
”They’ve got a brilliant defensive record. They’re very clinical … but against the Crusaders it’ll be a tough task, especially away from home.”
The Super 12 competition will be expanded to the Super 14 next season with the addition of new franchises from Perth, Australia and South Africa.
Besides Canterbury, only Auckland (three) and Australia’s ACT Brumbies (two) have won Super 12 titles since the inception of the competition in 1996.
The Crusaders are favourites for a fifth title after their demolition of the Hurricanes and a 33-27 win over the Waratahs at Sydney during the regular season. — Sapa-AP