Tightheads & Loose Balls
● You’ve got to feel for the Chiefs. They keep getting punished in an ill-conceived Super Rugby format. From the 2012 season they have finished no lower than fifth in their accumulation of log points at the end of the regular season.
For three seasons running from 2015 they have been fourth-best aggregators of log points. In 2015 they were condemned to an away quarterfinal to the Highlanders, which they lost. Two years ago they had to play a quarterfinal in Cape Town, which they won. They lost their semifinal in Wellington to the Hurricanes.
Last year they again won a quarterfinal in Cape Town, before bowing out in the semis against the Crusaders in Christchurch.
This year they accrued the third most points, and you’ve guessed it, they had to travel to Wellington for a quarterfinal. On Friday they lost by a point to the Hurricanes. Their season was over before that of the Lions, the Waratahs, the Highlanders, the Jaguares and the Sharks, who all registered fewer log points. Shame, they should really try to win their conference.
● A Cape Town-based news outlet with an international reach has taken issue with what it terms “an unhealthy obsession with John Mitchell”. A column beating that drum appeared last week and this week it followed it up with a Q & A with a former Springbok in which Mitchell and the Bulls were the focus. It seems the “obsession” is nowhere as “unhealthy” as in the outlet’s office.
● Speaking of miscreant test players, the Rebels were in damage-limitation overdrive last week. It has transpired they have a bellicose backrower in their ranks, and that the player’s mean streak may have been concealed from the franchise’s management. Amanaki Mafi left teammate Lopeti Timani with two significantly swollen black eyes after a confrontation in Dunedin last weekend.
The Rebels had been aware that Mafi was dismissed by Bath Rugby after he punched the club’s head of sports medicine in 2016. They preferred not to delve into that matter when they signed him at the start of last year. This week, however, it emerged that Mafi had assaulted teammate Marika Koroibete while the team was on tour in Cape Town earlier this year and that team manager Tony Thorpe had dealt with the matter so internally, he failed to report it to the franchise’s bosses. It has been reported that Mafi may face up to five years in jail, which will pretty much rule him out of Japan’s World Cup plans next year. His Brave Blossoms teammates are sure to watch legal proceedings with keen interest.
● A 20-year-old spectator has received a five-year worldwide rugby ban for assaulting a referee following a club match in New Zealand, the Timaru Herald reported this week. North Otago Rugby Union chief executive Colin Jackson said the union has measures in place, such as match-day managers, to ensure incidents like this one don’t occur. Tightheads can only imagine how busy match managers would be at some of our schools and club rugby matches.
● This week we tried to arrange an interview with Bulls and Springbok centre Jesse Kriel. He wanted questions e-mailed to him, but we declined. Tightheads can’t figure out why a man of such shirt-bulging dimensions would carry such an aversion to a dictaphone.