As it happened: Crusaders v Waratahs

Manasa Mataele runs in to score. Photo / Photosport

All the crazy action as the Crusaders hosted the Waratahs at AMI Stadium in Christchurch.

Here it is then, a Super Rugby "event game". The top teams from New Zealand and Australia locked in battle with transtasman pride on the line.

Can you feel the anticipation building as the Crusaders prepare to host the Waratahs tonight?

No? Well, excitement levels are even lower in Sydney where in times of crisis Waratahs' fans traditionally raise themselves to their full height, puff out their chests, clear their throats and ... disappear.

So even those who would normally be glued to the TV screen will busy themselves with vital tasks such as cleaning the bottom of fish tanks, rotating car tyres and de-fluffing belly buttons in order to avoid this almost certainly humiliating spectacle.

Not even the most shame-faced, pay TV-subscription-selling Super Rugby spruiker would dare suggest this game will be anything more than a training run for the Crusaders and a gruesome lambs-to-the-slaughter trial-by-scrum ordeal for the hapless Tahs.

As clashes between top-of-the-table teams go, the Crusaders versus the Waratahs seems a bit like Barcelona versus Shirak FC. (Shirak are two points clear of Alashkert, for those who haven't been following Armenian Premier League as closely as usual this season.)

In assessing whether the Waratahs chances against the Crusaders are non-existent or merely infinitesimal, you need only reflect on their 24-21 defeat by the rag-tag bunch of journeymen and kids who represented the depleted Blues last Saturday night.

Fittingly the game was played at Sydney's dilapidated suburban Brookvale Oval instead of slightly less dilapidated Allianz Stadium. Although, as it turned out, you could have scheduled it for Moruroa Atoll and still not concealed the reputational damage to Australian rugby.

Gregor Paul wrote in this newspaper last week that should the Waratahs lose to the Blues "the thread to which Australian rugby is clinging will snap and their place in the Super Rugby universe should be seen as tenuous".

Naturally this mischievous forecast caused Australian rugby fans to sniff and grunt with indignation, until the final minutes when the Tahs somehow found a way not to convert late possession into the points that would have stopped Australian rugby being sucked into that predicted black hole.

Now, having sent the Tahs to Canterbury with all the optimism you might send your pet bunny rabbit into a cage with a pit bull terrier, these same indignant fans are scanning the Super Rugby regulations in search of a mercy rule or holding candlelit vigils in the hope at least a few of the starting XV will return to Sydney alive.

There was an extenuating circumstance for the Waratahs' embarrassing performance against the Blues. It should be remembered - actually, it's almost impossible to forget - they sacked captain Nick Phipps in the week before the game after he urinated on the bar in a Sydney club while dressed as a cow.

As it turned out, however, Phipps and his teammates disgraced themselves even more after turning up to play the Blues dressed as rugby players, a disguise exposed by an Auckland outfit themselves described this season as "pathetic", "inept" and "not fit to wear the jersey" - most often at their family breakfast tables.

The very slim consolation for Waratahs fans is that they can blame a Kiwi. It just depends which one you choose - coach Daryl Gibson or Maria Folau.

Folau made her claim to one of the least attractive roles in world rugby when she tweeted her disgust that hubby Israel was being played on the wing instead of fullback as the Tahs were being pantsed by the Blues.

No doubt Israel was delighted by this. After all, what elite athlete doesn't love their partner second-guessing their coach on social media during a game, thus inviting conspiracy theories about unrest and disillusionment within the team?

Then again, given Folau's recent tangle with Rugby Australia about his choice of Old Testament tweets, the idea that he is deliberately defying his employer and causing unrest ahead of a move to another rugby jurisdiction or even rugby league is not exactly farfetched.

Especially when Folau doubled-down on his tweets for Jesus campaign this week by regurgitating the rantings of a homophobic preacher, not exactly the kind of "respect" Rugby Australia had in mind when it lectured the brilliant fullback (not winger!) on his social media responsibilities recently.

So with Israel and Maria becoming the Kanye and Kim of Australian rugby the Waratahs prepare for this misleadingly titled battle of the top teams.

Meanwhile, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Rugby Australia has hired an international agent to help retain its "topline talent" when surely it should instead hire a private detective to find it.

Richard Hinds is a leading Australian sports columnist.