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Aussie Super Rugby Grades - Week 13
By Robert Seltzer
It was so close. The streak looked to be broken in Christchurch only for dreams to be tattered in the second half. Will an Australian team ever beat a Kiwi team again? Here are how the teams fared this week:
Reds – E
They were lucky to even get an E.
They were trounced in Tokyo against a team that hadn’t one a game yet this season. It was 10th time lucky for the Sunwolves but the Reds will really need to take a long hard look at themselves after this one.
It started well enough and the Queenslanders lead 14-9 after 22 minutes, but that was as good as it got. The Sunwolves then piled on 54 points to leave the Reds reeling. The season is over for them now but they need to try and get some momentum going into next season and try and put this one down to a bad day at the office.
Waratahs – C
This was an incredibly hard grade to give.
40 minutes into the game and they were ranking an A+. They couldn’t have been any better. Leading 29-0 away from home at the Champions was a superb effort. All of Australia was jumping for joy thinking the hoodoo was over.
Fast forward to the 68th minute and the unthinkable has happened. The Tahs were a point behind having conceded a penalty try for repeated infringements at scrum time.
The Crusaders pulled off the biggest comeback in Super Rugby history yet Bernard Foley had the chance to snatch the win back with four minutes to go but his kick sailed wide. They could have been given anything but I can’t bring myself to go lower than a C due to them picking up a very unexpected bonus point.
Rebels – C
Their season is still alive. They snapped a 5 game losing streak in the Capital and at the same time ended the Brumbies season. They certainly did it the hard way.
They were 21-10 down at half-time with Tom English’s second try of the evening right on the hooter proving to be crucial to swing the momentum back in their favour. The scores were locked at 24 all with a minute to go. Reece Hodge, who had a mixed night with the boot, slotted the match winner to bring the Rebels to within one point of the conference-leading Waratahs.
Brumbies – D
The Brumbies can look forward to next season. This loss effectively ended any chance they had of making the finals.
In a game that lacked any sustained quality, the Brumbies weaknesses were exposed. They will have to try and find that X-factor player next season that can break through the line or create something when defences are rock solid. They lead for most of the game against the Rebels at home but couldn’t close it out and succumbed to Reece Hodge’s last minute kick.
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Latest Comments
Soccer on a rugby forum…
“Experience is strongly correlated with age, at least among the managers that I named”…
Slot and Arteta are among the youngest you named. They have the least experience as a manager (6 years each). Espírito Santo and Pep are the oldest and have the most (12 years + each). Pep is pushing 17 years experience, all at elite level. There are plenty around his age that won’t have the same level of experience. Plenty.
The younger breed you mentioned (Arteta in particular) may not coach at elite level beyond the next few years if they continue to not win trophies. Age and experience is not always a nice, steady gradient.
The only trend in English soccer is that managers don’t stay on as long with the same club. Due to the nature of the game and the assumed, immediate performance bounce of replacing them at the first sign of trouble. Knee-jerk style. Test rugby has no clear pattern of that.
Why would you dismiss a paradox? Contradictions are often revealing. Or is that too incoherent?
Go to commentsYou can’t compare the “quality”of competitions till they play against each other … what we do know is that nz teams filled with ABs and ABs can go at it with anyone in the world and these other teams and players are competing so would say the quality is high wouldn’t you? How are you determining that URC or top 14 is higher quality than Super I’m guessing you mean in the quality of players and execution ? Are you just assuming that it is because…. I would say it’s much of a muchness and the only indicator for that is international rugby and that is hella even
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