Aussie Super Rugby takes: Waratahs’ secret weapon, Force duo needed ASAP

Round seven has come and gone in Super Rugby Pacific, and we have once again been treated to some great rugby.

The Waratahs tamed the Brumbies in Canberra for the first time in nine matches, while the Queensland Reds received a walloping in Wellington by the Hurricanes.

The Chiefs scraped over the line against a refreshed and improved Western Force, while the Blues thumped the Fiji Drua, and in Auckland, the Highlanders managed to put away a determined Moana Pasifika despite dealing with power outages.

While almost all of these results were predictable, bar the Waratahs’ drought-breaking win in Canberra, one question remains: are the Hurricanes as far ahead of the rest of the comp as their results suggest?

The Hurricanes’ mettle will be firmly tested in the weeks to come.

So, with another round of rugby to analyse, here are the takes on the Aussie teams after the latest round.

Waratahs rise to the occasion, but taking the three points was the difference

It’s rare in Aussie rugby to have a kicker who is slotting goals at over 90%, but in Sid Harvey, the Waratahs have found that scarce resource.

The Waratahs finally found the 80-minute performance they were after, and they got the reward, beating the Brumbies in Canberra for the first time in nine games.

The Waratahs had higher energy, more urgency, and captain Matt Philip took the three points when they were on offer.

This showed the Brumbies’ defence the respect that it deserved and leaned on a unique ability that only he has at his disposal, Harvey’s boot.

Harvey nailed all six of his kicks, two were from virtually in front, two were from within the 15m lines on either side, and the trickiest one was a 48 metre kick from in line with the right post, and when he kicked it, it never looked like missing.

Had Harvey missed any of these kicks, then the Waratahs would be at best, staring at a tie, or at worst, a loss.

This is not to discredit the tremendous effort and tactical nous shown by the rest of the team, or to diminish the excellent games had by Miles Amatosero, Philip, Joey Walton, Jake Gordon, Andrew Kellaway, or the entire backrow, however, it cannot be said to have been a perfect performance.

A losing penalty count of 14-11 and a turnover count of 15-13 show there is still a lot of room for improvement.

The Waratahs really gave their all, 250 tackles at 92% tackle efficiency, with a large chunk of them being dominant contacts; it really turned the screws on the Brums.

It’s a mammoth effort in a crucial win for their season; however, no side can make that many tackles week in and week out, and it’s probably a factor Philip acknowledged in his decision to point to the posts when penalties came, as well as having Harvey’s ability in his calculations.

The Brumbies should be ecstatic with the first block ahead of their first bye

Coach Stephen Larkham said post-game that “they (losses) all hurt” and he immediately acknowledged he and his coaching staff had perhaps not managed his side’s minutes perfectly during the lead-up to the game.

“There’s a fair bit of fatigue, you can see that probably the linespeed wasn’t where it needed to be, and we sort of question the program now, whether we pushed them too hard this week,” Larkham told the post-match press pack.

“Probably just from a coaching perspective, could we have freshened the boys up a little more this week, so they felt a little better in the game?

Something we will have a look at the numbers there.”

The Brumbies are sitting third with the chance to drop as low as fifth should the Reds and Chiefs get results in round-8 during the Brums’ bye, which they are expected to do.

This is not a bad spot to be in, with three of their next five matches coming against sides in the bottom five of the competition: the Highlanders, Drua, and Western Force.

This will allow them to target the games against the Hurricanes at a neutral venue in round 11 at Super Round and the Reds at Suncorp in round 12.

The Brumbies know they have the game and the cattle to beat anyone on their day, but they will also be aware that they cannot be complacent.

Their commanding place on the ladder will disappear should they walk away from their next block with anything less than a three-win and two-loss ledger.

Reds bowled over in top-six physicality reality check

The Queenslanders went to Wellington with the wind in their sails after a great triumph in the Pacific over Fiji last round, but that wind quickly turned into a giant storm called the Hurricanes.

A scoreline of 52-14 actually flatters the Reds, with the Hurricanes dropping several last effort passes just before the Reds’ line.

It was clear from the outset that the power game of the Hurricanes was too much for the Reds, and their physicality in defence meant the Reds never truly got their phase play going.

A few moments of individual brilliance from Jock Campbell and impressive young gun Harry McLaughlin-Phillips generated points and momentum for the Reds, but it could not be sustained.

Try as they might, the Reds couldn’t break the yellow and black wall of the Hurricanes.

When push came to shove in the first stanza, only Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Seru Uru, Harry Wilson, and Fraser McReight could punch their way over the gainline.

Vaiuta Latu and Treyvon Pritchard were the best members off the bench, both providing x-factor and a point of difference.

With the Reds entirely neutralised in the close-quarter action, HMP needed to kick more often.

Once again, the Reds played too much rugby around the halfway line, and it meant they often spent too many phases going backwards and tiring out their battered pack.

The Reds took a step back in round-7, and although many will see the Hurricanes as the form side, the Reds’ own performance was not what they would have wanted, nor what their fans expected.

Western Force finally find their groove at the breakdown

The Force looked to have exhausted themselves early with two mega double-digit phase counts by the Chiefs, as the visitors camped themselves in the home side’s half.

However, their saving grace was their ability to consistently and legally slow the Chiefs’ ruck, which meant the Force’s defensive line was almost always set.

The slow ball allowed the Force to get double shoulders on most of their contacts, and it prevented the Chiefs from running up the scoreboard.

The likes of Jeremy Williams, Darcy Swain, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, and Vaiolini Ekuasi all aided Carlo Tizzano’s effort at the breakdown, and it made a marked difference to the integrity of their defence.

It also appeared that this allowed them to conserve their energy and, in turn, improve their own attacking raids, despite not getting the points they wanted.

Missing out on another losing bonus point will hurt and almost makes their top-six bid impossible.

The injection of the size and bulk of Zac Lomax and Dylan Pietsch into their undersized backline cannot come soon enough.