Blues triumph as Australians struggle - Winners and Losers Week Four
The Blues and Jaguares get their first wins of the season, Akira Ioane goes beastmode and two of Australia's best are struggling in this week's Winners and Losers.
Winner: Parity
Week four was full of upsets.
The Hurricanes beat the rolling Crusaders, the Blues stole a last gasp victory against the Lions and the Jaguares outclassed the Waratahs.
Unpredictable results like this are great for Super Rugby (but terrible for anyone having a punt).
Parity should be a goal for any competitive/professional sports league, and though it realistically may never be achieved, this weekend provided a little bit of hope and reminded us that on any given day, no team is unbeatable.
Loser: The Lions
After racing out to a 14-0 lead against the Blues in just 16 minutes, it looked like the Lions were going to cruise to their fourth straight victory to open the season.
The Blues looked to be down and out, facing an 11-point deficit with just eight minutes remaining.
Spirited attacking play from the Blues saw the Lions crumble and leak two tries inside the last three minutes, letting the game slip out of their hands and blemishing their perfect record.
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Blues stun table topping Lions
Winner: Fast Starts
Teams getting off to a fast start was a theme in week four.
It was the Hurricanes that started the trend in the weekend's opening fixture. Tries to Chris Eves, TJ Perenara and Ben Lam saw Chris Boyd's side get out to what proved to be an insurmountable 21-0 lead over the table topping Crusaders after just 23 minutes.
In Johannesburg, it took Lions winger Sylvian Mahuza just one minute to pick up his third try of the season after a quick tap.
But it was the Jaguares did it better than anyone else. The Argentinian franchise needed just 16 seconds to get a try on the board against the Waratahs. After ten minutes, winger Emiliano Boffelli had a double, and just another eight minutes later it was 26-0 after four unanswered tries.
Loser: Australia’s top dogs
The Waratahs are in a serious funk. The Brumbies are even worse.
Australia’s most recent conference champions have been close to unwatchable across their first three fixtures, and Daryl Gibson’s Waratahs - who, thanks to the return of Bernard Foley and Kurtley Beale, looked poised to reclaim their spot atop the Australian conference – have struggled mightily, already falling nine competition points behind the Rebels.
Luckily for these two, they’ll only face two New Zealand sides each during the regular season, and it won’t be for a while.
The Brumbies will face the Crusaders in round 11 and the Hurricanes in round 17, while the Waratahs will see the Blues in round 12 and the Highlanders in round 14.
Winner: Akira Ioane
The 22-year-old looked like a man among boys in his Man of the Match performance at Ellis Park.
Ioane shrugged off ten would-be tacklers on his way to 75 running metres, a try and the Blues’ first win of the season.
Ioane is tied for the competition lead in tries scored with four and has been a standout for Tana Umaga’s Auckland side across their first three fixtures.
At this rate he will be hard to keep out of the black jersey when it comes time for the All Blacks to take on France in June.
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I have heard it asked if RA is essentially one of the part owners and I suppose therefor should be on the other side of these two parties. If they purchased the rebels and guaranteed them, and are responsible enough they incur Rebels penalties, where is this line drawn? Seems rough to have to pay a penalty for something were your involvement sees you on the side of the conned party, the creditors. If the Rebels directors themselves have given the club their money, 6mil worth right, why aren’t they also listed as sitting with RA and the Tax office? And the legal threat was either way, new Rebels or defunct, I can’t see how RA assume the threat was less likely enough to warrant comment about it in this article. Surely RA ignore that and only worry about whether they can defend it or not, which they have reported as being comfortable with. So in effect wouldn’t it be more accurate to say there is no further legal threat (or worry) in denying the deal. Unless the directors have reneged on that. > Returns of a Japanese team or even Argentinean side, the Jaguares, were said to be on the cards, as were the ideas of standing up brand new teams in Hawaii or even Los Angeles – crazy ideas that seemingly forgot the time zone issues often cited as a turn-off for viewers when the competition contained teams from South Africa. Those timezones are great for SR and are what will probably be needed to unlock its future (cant see it remaining without _atleast _help from Aus), day games here are night games on the West Coast of america, were potential viewers triple, win win. With one of the best and easiest ways to unlock that being to play games or a host a team there. Less good the further across Aus you get though. Jaguares wouldn’t be the same Jaguares, but I still would think it’s better having them than keeping the Rebels. The other options aren’t really realistic 25’ options, no. From reading this authors last article I think if the new board can get the investment they seem to be confident in, you keeping them simply for the amount of money they’ll be investing in the game. Then ditch them later if they’re not good enough without such a high budget. Use them to get Jaguares reintergration stronger, with more key players on board, and have success drive success.
Go to commentsYeah, and ours is waaay bigger than yours. Just as you's get a semi…oh hold on that never happens
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