Super Rugby Round 7 produced the mixed bag of performances for the South African Franchises, which we have become used to in 2015. Here is our analysis of this weekend’s games.
Queensland Reds 17 Emirates Lions 18
Queensland Reds – tries: Samu Kerevi, Penalty try. Conversions: Quade Cooper(2). Penalty: Cooper
Emirates Lions – tries: Harold Vorster, Warwick Tecklenbug. Conversion: Elton Jantjies. Penalties: Jantjies (2)
The Lions continue to put a finger in the eye of their detractors and recorded a third away win on their Australasian tour. It was also encouraging to seen them playing with more attacking intent after their dour defensive efforts of recent weeks.
Centre Harold Vorster scored a fantastic try early in the game, managing to dot down despite his body being in the air outside the field of play. The six Reds players returning from injury probably did not help their cause as much as was hoped as their play did turn out to be a bit disjointed with the number of new combinations on display. The Lions also did well to add a bit of niggle to their interactions with Quade Cooper, which did frustrate him.
The Lions did try their best to throw the game in the 78th minute after earning a penalty in their own 22 in the 72nd minute. Instead of taking the penalty kick and moving up field, they opted for the quick tap and go and found themselves running up blind alleys. A very dangerous ploy which will be exposed if they do not root this out of their game.
Chiefs 37 Toyota Cheetahs 27
Chiefs – tries: Michael Leitch, Liam Messam, Sam Cane, Andrew Horrell. Conversions: Aaron Cruden (4). Penalties: Cruden (3)
Toyota Cheetahs – tries: Heinrich Brussow (2), Boom Prinsloo. Conversions: Joe Pietersen (3). Penalties: Pietersen (3)
The Cheetahs started this game with a much weakened squad, with Lood de Jager and Oupa Mahoje on the long term injury list and Sarel Pretorius, Willie le Roux, Cornal Hendricks and Coenie Oosthuizen were also not considered for selection. Despite this, the Cheetahs put up a strong performance against the much fancied Chiefs side on their own home ground and were very much in the game at half time, with the Chiefs leading 22 to 20.
The Chiefs were their own worst enemies in the first half, with ill discipline at ruck time costing them 2 yellow cards and at one time they were down to 13 players. If the Chiefs are to be serious contenders in 2015, their discipline will have to be addressed before the sharp end of the tournament.
In the second half, Heinrich Brussow returned the favour and played the ball from an offside position just meters from his own line. The yellow card was an obvious one and during his absence from the field the Chiefs scored two tries. After his return, Brussow produced a bullocking run to score a great individual try, but the damage had been done and the yellow cards had cost both teams.
Highlanders 39 DHL Stormers 21
Highlanders – Tries: Aaron Smith, Waisake Naholo 2, Patrick Osborne and Daniel Pryor; Conversions: Lima Sopoaga 5; Penalties: Lima Sopoaga and Marty Banks
DHL Stormers – Tries: Juan de Jongh and Michael Rhodes; Conversions: Demetri Catrakilis and Kurt Coleman
With Duane Vermeulen joining a whole raft of Springbok players who were given the weekend off, Juan de Jongh took over the reigns as captain of the Stormers. The first score of the game came after 18 minutes, with the captain on the night crossing over for a try. The Stormers were sticking to their structured game plan based on strong first phase play and were looking good for the win.
Slowly but surely though, the Highlanders drew the Stormers into a much looser contest, which more suited their own game. Giant winger Waisake scored a brace of tries, the second of which featured a huge bump off on Cheslyn Kolbe. For all his fantastic running abilities, Kolbe’s defensive frailties were once again exposed in this game. Dimitri Catrakilis was once again ineffectual at flyhalf, having a poor day kicking out of hand. His passing was also off the mark this weekend, which negated some of Damian de Allende’s attacking abilities.
After falling behind on the scoreboard, the Stormers were forced to chase the game, which is not a strength for them. The were very flat on attack, with short passes to players who were standing still. This played into the Highlanders hands, who were easily able to catch the Stormers behind the advantage line.
The Stormers will need to regroup fast or their season could slide downhill fast. They were outsmarted to lose this game and also threw away the chance to beat the Chiefs at Newlands earlier in March.
Cell C Sharks 15 Western Force 9
Cell C Sharks 15 – Tries: SP Marais and Lwazi Mvovo; Conversion: Fred Zeilinga; Penalty: Fred Zeilinga
Western Force 9 – Penalties: Sias Ebersohn 2 and Luke Burton
The Sharks were missing regular captain Bismark du Plessis, who was serving week one of his 4 week suspension, as well as rested Springboks Cobus Reinach and Pat Lambie. The first half of this game produced some of the poorest rugby on display for a very long time, probably more dire than the game dished up by the Bulls and the Force a week earlier and one would suggest that the players might be embarrassed to bank their match fees from this game.
This match resembled a trial game for most of the 80 minutes, with combinations not gelling and plenty of handling errors. Frans Steyn looked completely out of place at flyhalf, with his kicking out of hand as well as place kicking being poor. It was two moments of brilliance from Sharks fullback SP Marais that proved to be the difference between the two sides. In the first half Marais found himself at the end of a long bounce pass, he drifted outside of the defender before collecting the ball, so his man was beaten before he touched the ball and it was all about getting the hammer down to score in the corner.
In the second half, he sliced between two Force defenders with real pace to break out of his own 22. He timed the pass to Lwazi Mvovo perfectly and no-one was going to catch him in the sprint for the line. The Force were always in with a shout, but threw their chances away by butchering two tries. They had managed to string a number of phases together attacking the Sharks line and it looked to be a case of when would they score as opposed to if they would score. Steve Mafi crashed over the line, but they try was disallowed when the TMO found that Ben McCallman had cleared a defender out ahead of the ball carrier. Frans Steyn’s screaming at the ref to demand a TMO review was very disappointing to witness. He may have been correct, but his demeanor on the field will surely be of concern to the Sharks management. In the 78th minute, Force’s Kyle Godwin found himself at the end of pass which he just need to catch a flop over the line to score. He only managed the second part of that and the ball drifted harmlessly into touch.
Dire performances of this nature are not good for the game and stadium and television audiences can not be blamed if they thought twice about dedicating an hour and a half of their time to such poor entertainment.
Vodacom Bulls 31 Crusaders 19
Vodacom Bulls – tries: Francois Hougaard, Burger Odendaal, Grant Hattingh. Conversions: Handre Pollard (2). Penalties: Pollard (4)
Crusaders – try: Nemani Nadolo. Conversion: Dan Carter. Penalties: Carter (4)
This game proved to be the thriller of the weekend, with the Bulls starting fast and scoring two quick tries through Francois Hougaard and Burger Odendaal. The Crusaders refused to bullied out of the game and clawed their way back into the contest through the boot of Dan Carter and a try by Nemani Nadolo. Either side of halftime the lead changed hands a number of times and it was an intercept try by replacement lock that eventually sealed the deal for the Bulls.
The Bulls would have entered this game with some trepidation, with late withdrawals by Jan Serfontein, Arno Botha and Lappies Labuschagne. Of the replacements, young Burger Odendaal had a stand out game and is definitely one for the future, with his intelligent running lines and ability to slip tackles. Rudi Paige at scrumhalf is also developing nicely and has added a bit of snap to their backline play.
Springbok Francois Hougaard had a decent game on the right wing, but would need to pay attention to his defensive alignment in broken play as he has developed the habit of drifting in towards the ball, exposing himself to an attack on the outside. This hasn’t been exposed yet, but it will if it is not addressed.
For the Crusaders, their protection of scrumhalf Andy Ellis would be a concern as the Bulls forwards were able to get to him far too easily, a ploy which appears to have been deliberate as the Bulls did not often commit numbers to the breakdown.
The golden thread coming out of this weekend’s match ups was that the bulk of contracted Springboks were given some time off in preparation for the Rugby World Cup, which is a necessary exercise in a World Cup year. The obvious down side to this is that this often compromises combinations in the Franchises teams. With the number of players lost to Europe, the South African sides do struggle to fill the void when a marquee player is rested.
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