Super Rugby semis - what we learned

Could we have seen two more different victories in the semi finals of Super Rugby?

One winner patiently waited for their opposition to falter. The other ran theirs off the park. However, it didn’t really matter in the end, as the Crusaders and Lions – the two best teams of the regular season – clinched their places in next weekend’s final. Here’s a few things to ponder as we count down to the big day at Ellis Park.

• Maybe the NZ sides were lucky they didn’t play the Lions. The Johannesburg based side has had to put up with a great deal of angst of their supposedly easy draw this year, and it looked like the nay-sayers were right after the first half an hour of a game that saw the Hurricanes pull out to a 22-3 lead. However, the Lions then racked up 41 points – was it just all an elaborate rope-a-dope? By the end they were just toying with the Canes, and made sure they exacted revenge for their final loss last year.
• It took exactly half a second after full time before Canes fans started whingeing about the ref. Let’s face it though, Jaco Peyper got his calls right, Beauden Barrett’s yellow was justifiable and the Canes can’t blame the ref for all those missed tackles. Linesman Rasta Rasivhenge should share his secrets of how he was able to see a try being scored despite being 10 metres away on the wrong side of a ruck, though.
• If anyone had complaints of potential bias, it was the Crusaders anyway. Having a ref from the same area as the team they are officiating is a bit odd, but Glen Jackson went one step further because he actually used to play for the Chiefs. He didn’t do them any favours though, apart from barely penalising either side.
• Sam Cane doesn’t mind a bit of claret. The Chiefs skipper suffered a massive gash in his head early on in the game against the Crusaders, meaning it would squirt blood all over his face as soon as his heart rate got up. Given that he managed to put in a tireless shift in an ultimately fruitless effort, he would’ve left an awful lot of it out on the AMI Stadium turf.

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• It’s a very good thing that the final will be held at Ellis Park. From a showpiece point of view, it’s definitely preferable to have the final of the southern hemisphere’s premier rugby competition being held in one of the world’s iconic rugby stadiums, rather than a makeshift pile of scaffolding. AMI Stadium was barely half full for the Crusaders game last night anyway, so their fans don’t deserve a home final anyway.
• It took the Hurricanes two finals in a row to get the result they wanted, so now it’s the turn of the Lions to put what they learned from last year into practice next week. Elton Jantjes, despite coughing up a try to the Canes with one of his first touches of the ball, had a prominent role in the victory last night – something he never even got close to in the 20-3 loss in the 2016 final. The key to victory lies with him and the amount of quick ball he can get.
• Just like that, NZ rugby has said goodbye to some pretty good players. Aaron Cruden and Tawera Kerr-Barlow are off to France, while Cory Jane at least got to go out on a win last week after he was pushed off the bench by Julian Savea.
• Kwagga Smith still has the best name in Super Rugby.