Good morning G&GRs, and what an exciting and unpredictable round that was. And if we were looking at why, well, as the title says, the home teams had it. Yep, that’s right, every home team won this weekend. Not what we were predicting, and I’m not sure this will always be the case. But will definitely be something to keep an eye on when putting in your tips.
Three and a half days to go till we get a mini-break for Easter, and the end of the first term for those still afflicted with those pesky things called children. So set yourself up at your desk, grab a cup of black liquid gold ☕, and let’s get it on, G&GR style.
As always this is a fan-run site and any contribution is welcome, feel free to reach out to me at bris@greenandgoldrugby.com.au be it with an article an idea, or an opinion piece. There’s also a ‘Submit a Story’ option. So feel free to have a crack as the more the merrier.
Super Rugby Pacific 2024 – Round Five
Wellington Hurricanes 54 defeated Melbourne Rebels 28
KARL’s beloved Hurricanes managed to bang down double the amount of ‘meat pies’ compared to the Melbourne Rebels in this game, eight tries to four. This set up their 5th straight win and leaves them at the top of the table undefeated. A brilliant start to the season. Many accused the Hurricanes of showing disrespect by changing 13 players and starting with an alleged B team against the Rebels. Well, after watching that game if that was their B team, I’d hate to face their A team. Mind you, I’m not sure how that could’ve been called a B team when you’re bringing Jordie, ‘I have a clean judiciary record’, Barrett and TJ Perenara back into the mix.
Jordie Barrett and Salesi Rayasi started the try-scoring feast, with the Hurricanes banging down five tries in the first half. TJ Perenara proved that he’ll still be in contention for the ABs scrum half role with a crisp performance, delivering fast accurate ball. A double Achilles rupture be dammed!
The Rebels down 33-0, finally started to get their shit in one sock, managing to bang down a try just before oranges, to make it 33-7. The theme continued after halftime with the Rebels coming out as men on a mission, and grabbing themselves another try. But this momentum quickly came to an end when the Wellington-based boys scored another two tries in quick succession giving them a 47-14 lead with less than 15 mins on the clock. Although the Rebels were able to gain another two tries, the damage was well and truly done, and the Canes coasted to an easy victory.
The Rebels season is pretty much a complete shower of shit now, and the rest of the season will be playing for pride and individual contracts. The Canes on the other hand look to further cement their dominance at the top of the table and have rested some of their key players, which will help them significantly as we go deeper into the tournament.
ACT Brumbies 60 defeated Moana Pasifika 21
A series of wonderful back three tries have helped the Puppy Killers get their season back on track with a 39-point ass-whooping over the Moana Pasifika in Peter Harvey Land on Saturday afternoon. Noah Lolesio demonstrated this week that he’s got his mojo back.
Initially, the game appeared to be a tight contest but the Ponies’ backs through Corey Toole and Tom ‘Hot and Cold’ Wright displayed their wares, and in Toole’s case his outright speed to bang down meat pies aplenty. But the Brumbies didn’t have it all their way, their left side defence again proving to be anorexically thin with the MP able to exploit that twice.
The Brumbies have moved up to third on the ladder, and have certainly laid down a marker for the Queensland Reds, who they’ll play on the Easter long weekend up at Suncorp. Tana Umaga’s MP is now 2-3 sitting just outside the top 8 and will need to have a look at how the wheels fell off their wagon on Saturday afternoon.
Fiji Drua 39 defeated NSW Waratahs 36
The Fiji Drua have snatched a scintillating victory over the NSW Waratahs 39-36 in golden point time at the 88th-minute mark to break the Waratahs hearts, but sending the Lautoka crowd absolutely ape-shit crazy in what was the game of the round.
The Tahs came out of the blocks in red-hot form, and through a nice little lineout move were able to gain a 10-0 advantage in the opening stanza. However, this lead was shortlived with Iosefo Masi busting through soft defence to grab a great try. Olympic legend Frank Lomani was able to bang down two more tries in 4 minutes to take the locals up 26-10 leading into oranges. With the NSW team absolutely blowing with the heat and humidity testing their limits.
The second half didn’t exactly get off to a good start for the Tahs with Marky Mark knocking down his funky bunch to grab himself a serve of cheddar cheese and placing his team under significant pressure. But for some reason, the Tahs managed to play better with only 14 on the field (which could be a future coaching strategy for Darren Coleman), and grabbing a peach of a try via Charlie Gamble. Fiji not to be outdone responded quickly via Tevita Ikanivere, and in a tit-for-tat, the Tahs grabbed another via Joe Walton.
As the game moved into the final 15 minutes, the Fijians decided that a serve of cheddar cheese may help them too, just like their opponents. Kitione Salawa took one for the team, after the Drua’s multiple penalties defending the line. This numerical overmatch cost the Fijians significantly, with NSW banging down two 5-pointers drawing the scores level at 36 a piece with only minutes remaining.
Fiji was hot in attack in the last few seconds when Tane Edmed managed to ankle tap a flying Fijian, sending him into touch, and forcing the game into golden point. After a ten-minute break, and the coin toss completed, the game re-commenced at a frantic pace. The Tahs were handed the box seat when the Fijian bench scrumhalf had a moment of madness, copping a yellow and making life hard for his teammates.
NSW smelled blood in the water and seemed to gain a third leg, pushing deep into the Fijian half setting up an easy field goal opportunity. But in another advertisement as to why Tane ‘Sloth’ Edmed should not be looked at for higher honours, he screwed the pooch shanking his attempt and hitting the right hand upright. The Fijians regained possession knowing it was now or never, and powered down into the Tahs’ half, and during a second of broken play, Rob Valetini’s older brother Kemu made no mistakes and iced his field goal sending the local crowd nuts and breaking the Tahs hearts.
The Tahs have now lost three games by less than three points, but yet again it was a game they could’ve, and should’ve, won. Also, the game was poorly adjudicated by James Doleman, but I’ll cover more on that later. The Waratahs season now looks to have slipped away, and with it Darren Coleman’s contract renewal.
Auckland Blues 26 defeated Canterbury Crusaders 6
Well, what started badly has gotten worse for the crew from Canterbury, with the Auckland Blues spanking them 26-6, leaving the Crusaders at 0 from 5 for the SRP season so far. And if that wasn’t a scary enough statistic, it is also the first time that the Blues have beaten the Dark Saders in a decade. Wow, how the mighty fallen!
The first half proved to be a very tight affair in very damp and slippery conditions. Both teams struggling to adapt and keep the ball in hand with the ball resembling a bar of soap. The home side just managing to take a 9-6 lead into the sheds at oranges.
The second half was a totally different affair, with further bad luck for the Dark Saders when their captain David Havilli went off injured, and the scrum half decided that discipline was irrelevant and helped himself to a large serve of cheddar. This numerical advantage, and the Saders’ complete lack of discipline, helped the Blues to forge ahead dotting down two five-pointers. And, to cap it off the Saders, grabbed themselves another serving of cheddar in the final minutes of the game to play 20 mins of the last half with only 14 men.
This will certainly have alarm bells ringing loudly now in Canterbury, and the Blues have now cemented themselves in 3rd on the ladder. This game also had some interesting refereeing that I’ll discuss later.
Western Force 40 defeated Queensland Reds 31
The Twiggy Forest All Stars have upset the apple cart by dominating the Queensland Reds in Perth on Saturday afternoon. In what was a very poor first half for Queensland, the Force bolted out to a 21-0 lead in just about 30 minutes, leaving the Reds completely shell-shocked.
The Reds slowly eeked their way back into the game, but every time they scored, the Force would return fire, quickly and accurately, keeping the Reds at bay. Entering the final quarter the Force were up 40-19, when the Reds finally decided to get serious about the game. Mr Everywhere, Fraser McReight, and Jock Campbell both bagged themselves a meat pie, leaving their team down 9 points with 5 mins left on the clock.
The Force not to be denied their first victory of the season, shouldered arms and through tight and disciplined play, shut the Reds out of the game. Uncharacteristically for the Reds, Harry Wilson had the dropsies, and their forwards were outmuscled in the breakdown. Like in a couple of the other games, there was some interesting refereeing that I’ll discuss later. However, without a doubt, the Reds were outmuscled and let the Force get too big a margin for them to draw back. Well done on your first victory of the season Western Force. Take a bow!
Super Rugby Pacific Ladder
G&GRs, take a look at this ladder as there is something on it that you’ve seen before in your life regardless of how long you’ve been following the game. The Crusaders are on the bottom. The Brumbies have leap-frogged the Reddies, the Tahs have slipped to 10th, Drua up to 8th, and the Rebels remain hovering around 7th.
Due to the competitiveness of this season, the ladder (except for the Canes and the Crusaders at this rate) is going to jump around a lot after each round. Tipping will be a veritable feast of complexity, and the finals will really be up for grabs. I don’t know about you boys and girls but this old Queenslander, despite the Reds’ loss, is loving this season of Super Rugby.
Refereeing
I’d like to start this segment off by saying that up until this round, I thought the officiating in this year’s Super Rugby Pacific had been the best to date. I thought the referees had been really good, clear, communicative, and consistent. I was impressed, considering the tightness of some of the games and the speed at which Super Rugby is being played this season. But that changed this week.
This isn’t going to be your usual Brisney off the Long Run rant at referees. I don’t believe the referees cost any particular team that lost their game, even my team the Reds, who screwed that pooch all by themselves. But what I did notice was that the adjudicating was inconsistent, and I would love to know what everyone else thought. I would be really interested in KARL’s view on the games, and the games I am talking about are three out of the four Saturday games:
– Drua v Waratahs
– Blues v Crusaders, and
– Reds v Force.
Drua v Waratahs – Now I know James Doleman isn’t the most popular of the whistle blowers out there, but I really get the feeling that this man has very little appreciation for the feel of the game. The conditions were very hot, and humid and there’s little doubt the Fijians were trying to take their opponents out into deep water by running them ragged and taking as much advantage of their home ground conditions as possible. But Doleman, through his lack of feel for the game, was blowing his whistle for pedantic shit, and then allowing players to do dumb things like taking possession of the ball and walking away with it, denying the opposition the ability to use the ball quickly. Or when the Drua took a quick tap calling them back to the spot, and when I reviewed the replay, the spot was exactly where he took the tap from to start with. At first, I thought it was my anti-Tah, pro-Fiji status that had me looking this way, but reading the G&GR WhatsApp chat group, I wasn’t alone in my thinking. What are your thoughts?
Blues v Crusaders – This game was refereed by Ben O’Keeffe. Usually, one of my favourite pea blowers, BOK is one of those let the game play kind of guys, and I like that. However in this game when the Blues were hot on the attack inside the Saders’ 22, the Saders were infringing at will. BOK was calling them on their infringements repeatedly and it took a long while before he threw out the first serving of cheddar cheese. Down to 14 men, the Saders continued to infringe, and it was almost like the yellow card had reset the penalty clock back to zero. No further cards were issued (until later, and, yes, I’ll get to that). At my count, the Saders should have been down to 12 men at one stage, but alas they weren’t. Their player that was sin-binned returned, just in time for them to cop another yellow and be back down to 14. BOK is usually far more ruthless than that, and I’m just wondering whether a degree of sympathy crept into BOK’s decisions. To be fair it was like watching baby seals get clubbed to death, but the penalty count should have be cumulative, and the Saders should have had many in the naughty corner. Thoughts?
Force v Reds The referee for the game was Damon Murphy. Normally a fan of Mr Murphy, but unlike his usual style, this game just appeared to be a total free for all at the breakdown. This wasn’t aimed against one side more than the other, though I’m sure due to Queensland’s quick recycle game it may have had more of an effect on them. But players were lying all over the ruck, going well past the ruck, coming in from this side, rolling north-south instead of east-west, and impinging or fouling the 9’s ability to get at the ball. This is usually blown up quickly and the players stop doing it pronto, but in this game, it was just a free for all.
Normally I comment here about how it is the player’s job to adjust to the referee and get a feel for what they’re pinging and what they aren’t. But by god, the players are going to end up schizophrenic if they have to adjust week to week to such polemic swings and roundabouts of adjudicating. I’m not sure if there was official guidance this week, but sure as god made little green apples I’d love the adjudicating to go back to what it was in the first four rounds.
What do you G&GRs think?
Steelers book spot at the Paralympics
As covered here, at rugby.com.au, the Steelers, Australia’s Paralympic rugby team have earned themselves a slot at the Paris Olympics by downing Brazil, 62-37. This thrashing was in addition to wins over Germany, Colombia, and the Swiss.
This form is a really good indicator of the strength of the team who are looking to do better than their 4th place at the 2021 Tokyo games. It’s time for all of us G&GRs to get on board the Steelers yype train, and back our lads to France. And if any of our good readers out there have any contacts in the Steelers, we’d love to get in touch with you and have you on one of our podcasts. Please reach out, we’d love to hear from you.
Well, enough of this old man dribbling. Over to you G&GRs, have at it!
