New Zealand sides started to flex their muscles as the battle for Super 14 play-off positions intensified over the weekend.
New Zealand teams now occupy three of the top five places in the hunt for the semifinals, with the second-placed Sharks (31 points) from South Africa in danger of slipping out of the top four next week when they finally have a bye.
Pre-tournament favourites, the Sharks have played 10 successive games, often with a small core group of players who have not been rested and are showing signs of fatigue.
They lost their second successive game on Saturday in Durban, a 13-10 loss to the Canterbury Crusaders (26), who have still not recaptured the form that has guided them to seven Super titles, but are still winning matches.
Last week the Sharks lost to the bottom-placed Cheetahs.
The Cheetahs were unable to repeat that performance, beaten 28-10 by the Waikato Chiefs (31 points), who are top of the table on points differential after their sixth successive win.
The Chiefs have been the most underachieving New Zealand team in Super rugby, despite often having a core of All Blacks.
This season, however, some much needed steel has been exhibited from their pack, with loose forwards Liam Messam and Tanerau Latimer proving explosive at the breakdown and providing quick ball to an expansive, counter-attacking backline.
All Blacks centre Richard Kahui, whose aggressive defence has helped Latimer and Messam to turn ball over, however has been cited for a dangerous tackle on the Cheetahs’ Frans Viljoen and could miss next week’s match against the Bulls in Pretoria.
The third-placed Bulls (29) suffered a 32-31 loss to Australia’s ACT Brumbies (27) on Friday and after sweeping through their first five games unbeaten are starting to show signs of their lengthy road trip.
Waratahs slump
The Bulls have lost three of their last four games, with the only win a 20-6 victory over the New South Wales Waratahs, who are slipping out of contention after a promising start.
The Waratahs (28) were beaten 15-14 by the Western Force (23) in Sydney on Saturday, giving the Force a clean sweep of victories over the other Australian teams in the competition.
The Waratahs, last year’s beaten finalists, also have the bye before they head to South Africa for their final three games, all of which they must win to ensure a semifinal position.
”If you’re going to perform in this competition and you’re going to win this competition, you need to win big games at the back end of the season,” Waratahs captain Phil Waugh said.
”We’ve got the team here to win the competition but if you leave that many points out on the field we won’t win another game this year.”
The Brumbies head to Wellington to play the Hurricanes (29), who accounted for South Africa’s Stormers 34-11 on Saturday.
The Auckland Blues (28) also ended the Otago Highlanders (22) three-game winning streak with a 26-6 victory at Eden Park and face the Queensland Reds next week in Albany.
The Lions beat the Reds 31-20 in Brisbane in a poor quality match between two sides out of play-off contention.
”It was disgraceful,” Reds coach Phil Mooney said in warning he would make personnel changes for the Blues match.
”It was not acceptable. We literally gifted them four tries.” – Reuters