Super Rugby Aotearoa team grades: Crusaders are still the benchmark
You’d have to call Super Rugby Aotearoa a runaway success.
Sure, a few players voiced reservations about the intensity of the rugby, but it’s hard to see how those views are even remotely relevant.
Life’s different for a lot of us now. Work’s scarce and many people in fulltime employment are still only on a percentage of their pre-COVID-19 wages. Entire industries remain under threat and some people are back in lockdown.
New Zealand Rugby and Sky did a phenomenal job to get Super Rugby staged this year and – most importantly – keep the players on 100 percent pay. Rather than quibble about the relevant difficulty of the work, you’d think these blokes would be grateful to be paid at all.
Oh well, never mind. The rest of us are happy with the product.
Not to mention in continued-awe of the Crusaders and their ability to rise to the challenge almost every week. Whether you call it a fourth Super Rugby title in a row – or just a maiden Aotearoa one – there’s no doubting that they were 2020’s outstanding team.
Not surprisingly it’s them we’ll start with, in this assessment of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season.
Crusaders
Played: 7
Won: 6
Lost: 1
Grade: A
It’s not easy being the benchmark. To be the team that – week-in, week-out – every opponent lifts for and trains and prepares better for. And yet, almost every time, the Crusaders absorb whatever’s thrown at them and then strike back on the counter.
Take the 32-22 win over the Highlanders, which clinched the Crusaders the title.
Like so many teams before them, the Highlanders came to Christchurch and performed very well. In actual fact they dominated much of the match.
Come fulltime, though, it had all been for nought, as the Crusaders kicked away to win by 10.
Overall, Sam Whitelock – who had every reason to be disinterested this season – was terrific again, while other forwards such as Tom Christie, Tom Sanders, Cullen Grace and Michael Alaalatoa enhanced their reputations.
It’s a shame injury hampered David Havili, but Will Jordan was excellent. Richie Mo’unga remains a joy to watch and everyone else more than does their job.
You can’t give coach Scott Robertson enough credit for the way he enthuses these players week after week, year after year. It really is a remarkable achievement.
Highlanders
Played: 8
Won: 3
Lost: 5
Grade: B+
Not every good team is a champion one. Some, like these Highlanders, aren’t even a winning one.
That’s because success isn’t always measured in results. Sometimes it’s about people simply playing to their potential and a coaching staff getting the most out of a group that they can.
The Highlanders, on paper at least, were by far the weakest New Zealand team. The end of the last Rugby World Cup cycle hit no-one harder than them, as a host of proven performers opted for contracts offshore.
The fact that halfback Aaron Smith wasn’t among them, proved a huge help. He truly is a modern-day great and the quality of his play, and sheer competitiveness, helped keep the Highlanders in plenty of contests.
Around him, forwards such as Pari Pari Parkinson and Marino Mikaele-Tu’u showed promise.
Josh Ioane’s case was a curious one, though. Coaches always know best, but it was hard to understand why the Highlanders’ brainstrust didn’t give Ioane sole use of the No.10 jumper.
Mitch Hunt is a fine player, but Ioane is special. Or at least could be.
Blues
Played: 7
Won: 5
Lost: 2
Grade: B
Tempting to give them a slightly higher grade, but the truth is a 5-2 season is what the Blues should be churning out all the time. In fact, in terms of sheer ability, 7-0 shouldn’t have been out of the question.
They’ve threatened to be a good team for some years now, with a bit of direction and accuracy from first five-eighth all that was missing. At one point it appeared as if Beauden Barrett – or even Daniel Carter – might provide it, but in the end it came from Otere Black.
How sustainable Black’s form is remains to be seen. The Hurricanes happily gave up on him a couple of years back but, at 25, he suddenly looked the assured player he’d occasionally threatened to be.
The Blues have talent everywhere else so, if Black can keep being this good, they should be a serious threat for the title in 2021.
Hurricanes
Played: 8
Won: 5
Lost: 3
Grade: B-
Still a team that seems to lack real identity and who rely on the deeds of certain individuals.
Star players such as Jordie Barrett, TJ Perenara, Ardie Savea, Ngani Laumape and Dane Coles lead a supporting cast that remains only promising.
Asafo Aumua, Tyrel Lomax, Xavier Numia, Alex Fidow, Isaia Walker-Leawere, Du’Plessis Kirifi, Jackson Garden-Bachop, Billy Proctor, Peter Umaga-Jensen, Vince Aso and Wes Goosen are all among a group of Hurricanes we can see have ability, but who never seem to get a whole lot better.
How would some of these blokes go at the Crusaders, for instance? Would they make the leap from useful to outstanding?
One player who doesn’t appear as if he’ll kick on anytime soon is Vaea Fifita. He might be supremely talented, but it seems the Hurricanes now favour more reliable types than the 12-test All Black.
Is that his fault or further evidence of an environment that doesn’t often improve players?
Either way, you feel the Hurricanes could’ve got more out of themselves this year.
Chiefs
Played: 8
Won: 0
Lost: 8
Grade: D-
You can mount whatever defence for the Chiefs that you like. Injuries, luck and referees didn’t appear to favour them, but 0-8 is unacceptable and that’s all there is to it.
The situation isn’t helped by Warren Gatland’s other coaching gig.
He’s due to take the British & Irish Lions to South Africa next year, with Clayton McMillan stepping in as interim coach. We still don’t know what Super Rugby will look like then either but, for argument’s sake at least, let’s assume the Chiefs go well under McMillan and the debate about Gatland’s suitability only intensifies.
The Chiefs weren’t miles off the pace this year, but this is a results business and they didn’t win a game. That they had the talent too, despite injuries in the tight five, suggests that coaching could’ve been an issue.
Ideally, 2021 would be an opportunity for Gatland to answer his critics. Instead it looms as an extended job interview for McMillan.
Comments on RugbyPass
A long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates live or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is hear and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
2 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
2 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
1 Go to commentsInteresting article with one glaring mistake. This sentence: “And between the top four nations right now, Ireland, France, South Africa, and New Zealand…” should read: And between the top four nations right now, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and France…”. Get it right wistful thinkers, its not that hard.
24 Go to commentsHow did Penny get the gig anyway?
3 Go to commentsNice write up Nick and I would have agreed a week ago. However as you would know Cale & co got absolutely monstered by the Blues back row of Sotutu, Ioane and Papaliti and not all of these 3 are guaranteed a start in the Black jumper. He may need to put some kgs before stepping up, Spring tour? After the week end Joe will be a bit more restless. Will need to pick a mobile tough pack for Wales and hope England does the right thing and bashes the ABs. I like your last paragraph but I would bring Swinton, Hannigan into the 6 role and Bobby V to 8
28 Go to comments