Weekend Round-Up: The Jokers In The Premiership Pack

Catch up on the best of the weekend’s games on Rugby Pass, including a tension-filled NRL Preliminary Final, troubled Toulon looking to get their season back on track against Clermont and some defence-optional provincial rugby from New Zealand.

Aviva Premiership: Harlequins vs Saracens
Watch: Full Game | Condensed
March 20: that’s the last time Saracens lost a match in the Aviva Premiership, away to Tigers at Welford Road. Since then they have won both the Premiership and European Champions Cup, and begun to look like they may never lose again. Surely Harlequins, coming off losses to Sale and Exeter and without a handful of their top talent, wouldn’t be the side to break that streak. But with the Twickenham Stoop scoreboard reading 17-0 to the home side at half time, an upset was well and truly on the cards.

NRL: Storm vs Raiders
Watch: Full Game | Condensed
The penultimate match of the NRL season was a battle of heart vs head for the neutral rugby league fan – while we’d all love to see the underdog Raiders in the Grand Final next weekend, logic dictated it would most likely be the machinelike Storm who made it through. They scored the first points of the game through a Cameron Smith penalty, but when Jordan Rapana crossed to break the Raiders’ single season try scoring record seven minutes later it was game on in a match that had all the hallmarks of finals footy.

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Top 14: Toulon vs Clermont
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Toulon’s difficult start to the season has been well publicised these last few weeks, and it didn’t look like getting any easier when they hosted unbeaten Clermont on Sunday. In their last two games Clermont had put 40 points past both Racing 92 and Bordeaux, but those were home games. And for all the doom and gloom surrounding Toulon, their last couple of games weren’t actually that bad – they beat Toulouse and scored 30 in a losing effort at Racing last week. Their clash with Clermont promised to be a tight game, and it didn’t disappoint.

Mitre 10 Cup: Canterbury vs Otago
Watch: Full Game | Condensed
Otago travelled to Christchurch on Saturday as the only unbeaten team in the Mitre 10 Cup – the Championship battlers having defied all expectations to go 6-from-6 to start the season. Canterbury, the presumptive champions since their opening round demolition of Auckland, had suffered their first loss of the season the previous weekend to, of all sides, Manawatu. With Otago looking to keep the streak alive and Canterbury looking to regain their rightful place atop the Premiership table, one of the great New Zealand provincial rugby rivalries produced a veritable feast of tries.