Last year’s finalists in the box seat again
The two most ruthless and clinical teams were worthy winners last night.
That four New Zealand teams would make the quarterfinals of Super Rugby next weekend has been obvious for weeks.
The order they’ve finished in the round robin is the surprise.
The Hurricanes to beat the Crusaders in Christchurch? Certainly possible. To thrash them and take a bonus point? Amazing, but true.
The Highlanders to win by 10 points in Dunedin? Making it five wins over the Chiefs in five games? Slightly unlikely, but true. The Canes to top the New Zealand conference? Last gasp, but true.
So now we know that the Canes will have a home quarter-final, against either (depending on what happens when the Lions play the Jaguares this morning) the Crusaders or the Sharks. The Crusaders will go to either Wellington or to Johannesburg (to play the Lions). The Chiefs will go to South Africa. The Highlanders will go to Canberra.
Who looks the most likely to take out the title?
The Canes were brilliant in Christchurch, showing many of the elements that make a champion team.
But the odds must be almost as good for the Highlanders.
They have several important assets. For a start players who have already played and won in finals football.
The X factor is that they have runners in Ben Smith and Waisake Naholo who can make the best tacklers look either lead footed or slightly feeble, and the Highlanders didn’t just threaten the Chiefs’ line, they stormed it.
They also have massive courage on defence. The great Crusaders’ teams under Wayne Smith and Robbie Deans won their titles on the back of fierce, tireless, defence.
Nothing that’s happened in Super Rugby since has made that sort of rock solid cover any less important. What’ll be fascinating now is to see who gets the most benefit from very different roads into the finals, the Kiwi teams who will be hugely battle hardened from their fierce local derbies, or the South African teams, who, by comparison, have reached the finals in much less intense conferences.
In Christchurch, the Hurricanes played rugby in the way that wins titles. For a start every half chance they got, they took.
Whether it was the T J Perenara charge-down just before halftime, or Beauden Barrett streaking past a bewildered group of Crusaders in the last minute, this was a team in a daring, dynamic mood.
A bonus point win might have seemed a pipe dream before kickoff. Once Willis Halaholo slipped out of the usually safe arms of Matt Todd and scored just after halftime, it was always on the cards.
The game had the feel of a playoff, reflected in the bizarre sight of, if not an all-in fight, an allin push and shove, and, as can happen in playoffs, unlikely stars emerged when it matters most.
As a prime example, Halaholo, dynamic in the midfield, is off to Wales, and right now you’d say the Cardiff Blues have made a great buy.
When they were eyeing him earlier in the season he was a benchwarmer. Last night he was a game breaker. An even more left field hero was prop Loni Uhila, the man with the Mr T haircut.
When he got the call late last year from Canes coach Chris Boyd to join the 2016 squad he thought it was a mate playing a practical joke.
Two things happened when he was subbed on last night. The Canes scrum, which had been candy floss soft until then, hardened up, and the man they called the Tongan Bear started smashing through tacklers who for most of the year have been highly efficient.
The Crusaders will now need tenacity just to look at the game tapes. The hope they’ll cling to is that the embarrassment of being whipped in front of a capacity home crowd will be a spur to an angry, more successful, effort next week.
As for the Blues, the only New Zealand side now out of contention, their form at the tail end of the round has been so good there will probably need another mealy mouthed excuse from Sanzaar officials next year about how nobody could have picked so many Kiwi teams to be so successful.