Harry Plummer and Blues players celebrate. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Harry Plummer and Blues players celebrate. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Opinion:
Farewell, then, Super Rugby Trans-Tasman.
You have a final that may briefly avert the attention of the New Zealand public at least on Saturday when the Blues host the Highlanders at Eden Park, and the winners will no doubt celebrate long into the night, but you will be rememberedby those not connected to those success-starved franchises as a value-add, an afterthought, an embarrassingly lopsided competition that merely served to highlight the one major flaw of Australian rugby.
It's plainly obvious that there are too many Super Rugby teams over the ditch but possibly more of a concern is the near acknowledgement that doing anything about it is a political hand grenade because of the game's precarious grip on the sporting landscape in Australia.
They're not strong enough for five teams and barely strong enough for four but they'll limp on regardless because of the apparent need to keep a footprint in the sporting mecca of Victoria via the Rebels and more pragmatic desire to access the deep pockets of Western Force backer Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest in Perth.
So as we've seen, it all resulted in a competition in which the two nations were effectively playing by different rules, such was the gulf in class; for the Kiwi teams a win with a bonus point was a near non-negotiable to make the final while the Aussies were merely attempting to limit the damage.
To use a boxing analogy, they were in different weight classes.
Twenty three wins for the five New Zealand teams compared with two for the Aussies says it all. Remarkably, the Waratahs, who won Super Rugby in 2014, didn't win a game all year; 0-5 in Super Rugby TT and before that, 0-8 in Super Rugby AU.
The only true unknown was which Kiwi teams would make the final and whether the Crusaders could stop shooting themselves in their collective feet after winning everything since 2017. It turns out they couldn't.
They were on the back foot since round one when they dodged one bullet in the form of the Brumbies – remarkably only one week after the red and blacks won Super Rugby Aotearoa (which probably explains why they couldn't maintain their usual intensity).
Patrick Tuipulotu and Dalton Papalii. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
But after failing to get the required points differential in the win over the Rebels in the final round they will have realised that had they not thrown away their winning bonus point in the final minute of their win over the Force they would not only have been in the final but hosted it.
That they finished undefeated and with a positive points differential of 97 but still failed to make the post-season will go down as a bizarre anomaly in the wider context of professional rugby.
The (hopeful) retreat of Covid and probable inclusion of Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua next year means fortunately we're not likely to see Super Rugby TT again which, for some, will make the competition an aberration but for either the Blues or Highlanders more like manna from heaven.
It got one element right, however. The captain's challenge brought into Super Rugby Aotearoa this year will hopefully also be consigned to the bin. The reporting or, often more cynically, fishing, for foul play must remain in the officials' hands rather than those of the players. Not only did it slow the game – something New Zealand Rugby is anxious to avoid and the reason it brought in the similarly problematic goal-line dropout to replace the five-metre scrum – the whole thing reeked of schoolyard tittle tattle and threatened to hasten the game's slide into football-style injury "simulation".
The referee, two touch judges and television match official are under enough pressure at the top level. Leave that side of the game to them and if they don't perform adequately then keep searching for officials who do.
Meanwhile, the finale of a weird little footnote of a season is likely to be a barnstormer. All of the pressure appears to be on the Blues. The Highlanders don't seem to have a chance. It's just how they like it.
