LONG READ Australian sides learn to win ugly as seminal Super Rugby Pacific run-in looms

The closer we get to the Super Rugby Pacific finals, the more games are going to tighten up. Teams that find ways to win are the ones preparing themselves for literally anything that could happen in a knockout game.

The Hurricanes, fresh from an impressive demolition of the second-placed Blues, will face five games against current top six teams in their remaining seven fixtures, including the Crusaders twice. The Crusaders themselves, over their last five games, will start and finish with the Hurricanes, and face the Blues and Chiefs with a bye in between. The New Zealand sides will grow battle hardened but takes points off each other in the process.

The big Australian winners from this scenario could be the ACT Brumbies and Queensland Reds. The Australian teams will certainly have easier run-ins than their New Zealand counterparts, and even facing each other in round 12, the Brumbies and Reds each play the current bottom three during the final seven rounds. If Queensland can come through the Blues, Brumbies, and Chiefs following a bye this weekend, they could be well-placed to cash in against ninth, 10th and 11th next.

Which is why neither will be overly fussed about wins that weren’t the prettiest over the weekend.

Coming off a very welcome bye, the Brumbies made the long trek to Dunedin and lacked cohesion. Their timing was a bit off, passes missed the mark, and they very nearly got sucked into playing exactly the kind of hard breakdown game the Highlanders love.

Despite having an equal share of possession, the Brumbies carried nearly 60% more than their opponents, and made more ground as a result, but didn’t get any huge reward from it.

Despite having an equal share of possession, the Brumbies carried nearly 60% more than their opponents, and made more ground as a result, but didn’t get any huge reward from it. They played their same high-possession, patient game that waits and waits for an opposition defence to break, but it was well into the last quarter before they took a firm grip of the contest, and the 75th minute before scoring the decisive try.

They gave the Highlanders scrum a few headaches, and put enough pressure on the lineout the home team lost six on their own throw, but didn’t come out of the collisions well at all. They couldn’t make anywhere near as many tackle busts as the Highlanders, with the Brumbies’ top five players for defenders beaten only bettering Timoci Tavatavanawai and Caleb Tangitau’s combined total by one.

In reality, this was a very typical Highlanders-Brumbies game played in New Zealand. A clash of styles, with the Highlanders prepared to defend, challenge the Brumbies’ phase play with dominant shots enabling a turnover roughly every 10 minutes. But they still won, and this is the bit that really matters.

Queensland are setting up for a different challenge this week. Their second bye of the season allows a timely opportunity to refine the game plan, apply a bit of spit and polish, and arrive in the finals series with momentum.

Their second bye comes with a fairly contrasting form line, too. A bye in round two is usually about as welcome as a Christmas Day cold snap down in this part of the world, but after an opening-round beating from the NSW Waratahs, Reds coach Les Kiss mentioned the break might be useful for a reset.

‘Reset’ may well have meant ‘restart’, from which the Reds went on a four-game winning streak to break into the top four. After beating the Crusaders, Queensland now get to do the same thing and hopefully achieve the same results.

And there’s no doubt they’ll use the bye to sharpen up in a few areas too.

n ugly win earns more competition points than a picturesque loss, after all. At this time of the season, an ugly win could take you into the finals, and get you over the line in knockout rugby.

Though the game was hard-fought from start to finish, and Queensland didn’t kick away until the last seven minutes, a major drawback for both sides was the combined 44 turnovers conceded – more than 30 straight-out handling errors that stifled so much attack. Not all handling errors are equal but when every player on the field essentially drops the ball once, you do have to wonder what on earth is in the water bottles.

The Reds lineout running at a notch or two below their average for the season will be a source of concern too, especially on a night when all other set-piece components held strong.

Where Queensland did have an edge was bench depth, and that proved the difference in the end, with the Reds able to force errors from a young Crusaders finishing group, underlined by scrum-half Louis Werchon scooping up a loose ball and running 60m while keeping an eye on the big screen to check how close the chasing defenders were getting.

Like the Brumbies, this wasn’t the smoothest Reds victory of the year, but also like the Brumbies, the most important point is it now sits in the win column.

Both wins also serve as a reminder these things don’t need to be pretty, and they don’t even need to linger too long in the memory. An ugly win earns more competition points than a picturesque loss, after all. At this time of the season, an ugly win could take you into the finals, and get you over the line in knockout rugby.

There are obvious areas of improvement, of course, but coaches can use these wins as a benchmark. “Remember how patient we were in Dunedin,” or “remember how we beat the Crusaders with 20-plus turnovers”.

The ability to win games in any circumstance is only going to become more important from here. It’s a very good thing the Australian contenders are starting to showcase that trait.