1
Brutal Super Round contest sees Drua go toe-to-toe with Waratahs
By AAP
The NSW Waratahs have emerged battered and bruised but with a vital win against Fijian Drua in a brutal Super Round rugby clash in Melbourne on Saturday.
Darren Coleman's Waratahs scored six tries, including five in the second half, to post a 46-17 victory at AAMI Park on Saturday night to bank their first win of the Super Rugby Pacific season.
The Sydneysiders broke a 17-17 deadlock in the 56th minute with No.8 Langi Gleeson, who was one of their best, planting the ball across the line.
From there they were never headed, with five-eighth Tane Edmed touching down before Max Jorgensen and Mark Nawaqanitawase followed, the latter two eased by the Drua being down to 13 men after two yellow cards.
The Waratahs started strongly but had little to show for their early dominance, restricted to a try in the 10th minute from Dave Porecki, the hooker diving across the line from the back of the ruck.
Buoyed by a vocal crowd who at one stage cheered every tackle a Waratahs player, the Fijians started to work their way into the game.
They were piggy-backed by some poor discipline by New South Wales, who accrued nine penalties in the first half.
Fijian Drua hit the lead in the 31st minute through flanker Joe Tamani, with a late penalty by Edmed levelling the score at 10-10.
The Waratahs looked happy to reach the break level, with lock Jed Holloway telling TV commentary his team had been "bashed" in the final 10 minutes before the whistle.
Drua hooker Tevita Ikanivere crashed through Jake Gordon to again give his side the lead three minutes into the second half but the Waratahs hit back five minutes later through fullback Ben Donaldson.
Gleeson's effort opened the floodgates for the Waratahs to pick up an important bonus point in the win.
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
Go to comments