Defending Champs Feel the Heat in Round 3
The third round of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific 2024 season continues today. Here are selected storylines to follow;
Crusaders feeling the heat
It’s only the third round of Super Rugby Pacific but already there is plenty of pressure on the tournament’s defending champions, the Crusaders, who have suffered back-to-back defeats in their previous two matches – against the Chiefs and Waratahs.
New head coach Rob Penney came into the job with a tough act to follow in replacing Scott Robertson, who won a Super Rugby title in each of his seven seasons at the helm of the Christchurch-based outfit before taking charge of the All Blacks.
After losing those matches to the Chiefs and Waratahs, the champions can ill afford another defeat but they face a tough assignment away to the Swire Shipping Fijian Drua at 1.05pm today.
While the Drua have also lost their first two matches – against the Blues and Moana Pasifika – this game will be played at Churchill Park in Lautoka where they clinched a shock 25-24 victory over the Crusaders in the last year’s corresponding fixture.
The Fijian outfit always seem to grow an arm and a leg in front of their home fans and will be highly motivated to repeat last year’s heroics against the champions.
Akira Ioane has big boots to fill
The Blues are up against the Hurricanes in Wellington in a highly anticipated New Zealand derby tonight and despite a superb start to the season, the Auckland-based outfit’s head coach Vern Cotter has made several changes to his starting line-up.
One of the shock selections for this week was Cotter’s decision to drop the Blues’ first choice number eight Hoskins Sotutu with fellow All Black Akira Ioane shifting from the blindside flank to take his place, while Anton Segner comes into the run-on side to wear the number six jersey.
While Ioane is no stranger to the number eight position, it’s a massive gamble to omit Sotutu as he has been in excellent for the Blues this season. The 25-year-old has started the year like a house on fire as he is currently the tournament’s leading try-scorer (5) after notching a brace against the Drua and a hat-trick against the Highlanders.
Brumbies back
determined to bounce
The Canberra-based outfit has been Australia’s standard bearers at Super Rugby Pacific level in recent years as they have reached the semi-finals in 2022 and 2023 where they have suffered defeats to the Blues and Chiefs respectively. After starting their 2024 campaign in style with a one-sided 30-3 bonus-point victory against the Rebels at AAMI Park in Melbourne, they suffered a humiliating 46-12 defeat to the Chiefs in their Super Round encounter at the same venue last weekend. Despite that loss, head coach Stephen Larkham has not made many alterations to his runon side for their derby against the Western Force in Canberra this afternoon. With it being their first home game of the season, Brumbies fans will be hoping for a polished performance from their team and it could be a long day at the office for the Force, who can expect a backlash from their hosts who will be keen to get their campaign back on track.