Can Chiefs break Hurricanes’ first-quarter stranglehold?

The halfway point of the Super Rugby Pacific regular season is here and we are about to find out a whole lot more about two of the leading title contenders.

The unbeaten Hurricanes take on the Chiefs, still the competition favourite, in a mouth-watering matchup in Wellington tomorrow night.

There may be seven regular-season rounds still to play after this one, but this classic in the capital could well go a long way to deciding the pecking order for the playoffs.

That contest is where we begin this week’s Super Rugby Pacific stat chat (with a shoutout to our mates at Opta and Rugby Database for their continued fine work).

Hurricanes v Chiefs 5

This is an extremely tight head-to-head (21-20 to the Hurricanes, with two draws), but one that has swung in the Chiefs’ favour in recent years.

After the Canes enjoyed a six-game unbeaten streak in the matchup through 2018-20, the Chiefs have won the last five (including three in the capital).

5.88%

Can the Chiefs break the Hurricanes’ early-game stranglehold?

Clark Laidlaw’s Canes have proved almost impenetrable in the opening quarters of their six contests so far this season, so much so that they have conceded just one try through those stages.

That represents a miserly 5.88% of the Hurricanes’ total 17 tries conceded – easily the lowest first-quarter figure of any team. Instead, a hefty 52.94% of the tries scored against the Canes have come in the third quarter.

5.71%

And if the Chiefs get a sniff on attack, they can hurt a team quick smart.

So efficient is their attack, in fact, that, of all the 35 tries they have scored this season, just 5.71% have come from a buildup involving seven or more phases. No other side is in single figures for that metric.

Waratahs v Crusaders 52.63%

Speaking of early-phase striking, the Crusaders best be on their toes at set-piece against the Waratahs, a team they lost to only six weeks back.

That is because the NSW side have scored 52.63% of their total 19 tries from first-phase ball − the highest one-phase strike rate in the competition.

In an interesting comparison, the Crusaders are a competition-low 20% off first-phase, but a competition-high 53.33% for scoring off a 2-3-phase attack.

15

The Crusaders’ pack is probably still having nightmares about that last meeting against the Waratahs in Melbourne, when Jed Holloway, in particular, made a mess of the red-and-blacks’ lineout.

Since then, the Tahs have kept up that strong work, and have logged the most lineout steals of any side, with 15. Holloway, the 12-test Wallaby and 95-capped Waratah, has 10 of those, which is the second-most in the competition (one behind Brumbies No 8 Charlie Cale).

At the same time, the Crusaders have the worst lineout success in the competition, at 74.2%, though the return of Quinten Strange shored it up plenty in the drought-breaking win over the Chiefs a fortnight ago.

Moana Pasifika v Reds 289

When Tana Umaga was appointed Moana Pasifika’s new coach soon after last year’s competition had finished, he immediately spoke of the need to seriously tighten up their defence.

It has proved far from a straightforward task, with his side having leaked 289 points through seven games, with a massive 175 coming in their last three outings.

At the halfway point of their regular season they are in danger of going worse than the 514 conceded in their maiden campaign in 2022 and even the 610 from last year.

0

The Reds are the only team not to have received a yellow or red card this season. Aside from the Hurricanes, all the other sides have copped at least two.

Rebels v Highlanders 86

For all the negativity surrounding the Rebels’ financial woes, and their potential scrubbing from the landscape next year, they are putting up a decent fight.

The team which finished 11th last year and 10th the year before are sitting 10 points inside the top-eight, at fifth on the ladder with a 4-3 record.