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Watch: Tom Robinson shows great skill to score try vs Chiefs
By Sam Smith
Blues replacement Tom Robinson scored what may go down as being one of the individual tries of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season on Saturday night.
The 26-year-olds near 40-metre burst handed his side the lead with just under 20-minutes to play. It was another twist in a match that already had plenty of drama, with the Chiefs having only taken the lead four minutes earlier.
With the Blues only up 7-0 at half-time, the Chiefs opened the scoring in the second-half through a Damian McKenzie penalty.
Soon after, Anton Lienert-Brown came incredibly close to scoring what would’ve been a go-ahead try, but he was ruled to have knocked it on by the TMO. But then in the 58th minute, a try to Samisoni Taukei’aho handed the hosts their first lead of the night.
Otere Black had a chance to snatch the lead back for the Blues practically immediately after, with Sam Cane having been penalised off the kick-off that followed. But the flyhalf pushed the kick wide right, with he scores staying at 8-7.
But it was all the Blues from there on, until Robinson scored his try. Running the ball out of their half after the 22m drop out. Caleb Clarke made an impressive break down the left edge, but he was stopped by Brad Weber and McKenzie.
A couple of phases later though, Robinson got the ball on the other wing.
With an overlap out-wide, a short ball from Dalton Papalii gave the towering forward some space to run, but he had plenty of work to do – showing great footwork and pace to beat all the Chiefs defenders.
He beat Chiefs flyhalf Kaleb Trask with a right foot step, and this arguably made the try-scoring run possible.
Brad Weber chased Robinson down, but he wasn’t going to be denied, reaching out for the try.
Fans on Twitter have sung Robinsons' praises after the match, with one user saying that he'll "be an All Black this year."
Man deserves a start tbh
— Somli (@jamba156) March 27, 2021
From there, the Blues so nearly held on for the win but a McKenzie try in the 80th minute won the match for the hosts.
Luke Jacobson made the break that led to the try, but the fullback showed great skill to cross for the score.
The result it big for both sides, who are separated by just two points on the ladder, with two wins each. But the Blues do still currently have the advantage, sitting in second.
The Crusaders are clear of the pack at the time of writing, sitting eight points clear of the Blues after five rounds.
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Latest Comments
oh ok, seems strange you didn't put the limit at 7 given you said you thought 8 was too many!
Why did you say "I've told you twice already how I did it but your refuse to listen" when you had clearly not told me that you'd placed a limit of 8 teams per league?
"Agreed with 4 pool of 4 and home and away games?"
I understand the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules. I do still think that you're right that that would be the best system, but there is going to be a real danger of French and SA sides sending b-teams which could really devalue the competition unless there is a way to incentivise performance, e.g. by allowing teams that do well one year to directly qualify for the next year's competition.
Go to commentsFoster should never have been appointed, and I never liked him as a coach, but the hysteria over his coaching and Sam Cane as a player was grounded in prejudice rather than fact.
The New Zealand Rugby public were blinded by their dislike of Foster to the point of idiocy.
Anything the All Blacks did that was good was attributed to Ryan and Schmidt and Fozzie had nothing to do with it.
Any losses were solely blamed on Foster and Cane.
Foster did develop new talent and kept all the main trophies except the World Cup.
His successor kept the core of his team as well as picking Cane despite him leaving for overseas because he saw the irreplaceable value in him.
Razor will take the ABs to the next level, I have full confidence in that.
He should have been appointed in 2020.
But he wasn’t. And the guy who was has never been treated fairly.
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