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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – The Wallabies are sure to be licking their lips now as well about the prospect of possibly unseating South Africa as World Cup champions in a few weeks’ time.
While the Reds’ deserved, maiden Super Rugby title success in Brisbane on Saturday -- eclipsing the travel-weary Crusaders 18-13 – won’t have done too much to quell New Zealand optimism for the looming, home-staged tournament, it will have helped keep Aussie tails up in terms of their own prospects of wrestling back the Webb Ellis Cup.
With the Robbie Deans-coached national side more and more likely to be dominated now by players from the Queensland franchise – more customarily among the whipping boys of Super Rugby not much more than two years ago, amazingly – it seems clear that 1991 and 1999 champions Australia will be highly competitive at the World Cup.
Remember that they are currently ranked a shade ahead of the Springboks at No 2 on the IRB rankings anyway, and will only be having to make the short passage across a rather familiar “ditch” for the global get-together from mid-September.
The Wallabies will be overwhelming favourites to top Pool C at the World Cup, with only Ireland as vaguely realistic threats to their comfortable advance from it as winners.
Keep in mind, too, that despite the emphatic nature of the All Blacks’ retention of the Bledisloe Cup last year – and effortless romp to the Tri-Nations 2010 honours at generally the same time – the Aussies do have bragging rights from the last Test match between the two Australasian powers: a 26-24 win in a dead-rubber additional fixture in Hong Kong late last year.
So a country so often distracted by various other “ball” codes, has an increasingly credible chance of success in neighbouring New Zealand.
There is still this year’s condensed Tri-Nations to consider, although as a gauge of World Cup fortunes it will probably be quite limited, especially with the Boks so bluntly signalling their World Cup priorities by naming a hugely diluted squad for the away leg later this month.
Nevertheless, there was no special evidence from the latest Super Rugby final to give the Bok camp any extra headaches with the RWC in mind – if anything it served as a reminder, with its often helter-skelter momentum and breathless in-field focus, that this tournament remains markedly different in character to top-tier Test rugby and particularly business-end activity at World Cups.
That is not to say that many South African analysts and observers would not have been concerned at confirmation in Brisbane, once more, that from a pure skills and panache perspective – and not just in the backlines, mind – we remain the poorest cousins among the southern hemisphere rugby giants at present.
Certainly if the Wallabies can put together a pack of sufficient set-piece muscle, they will be ever more capable of bringing into powerful play “X-factor” customers like the Reds’ thrilling No 9 and 10 alliance of Will Genia and Quade Cooper and that bundle of left wing dynamite Digby Ioane.
Although the team ethic at the Reds has been hugely impressive all season, it is probably no coincidence that victory on Saturday was largely secured on the basis of spectacular, long-range solo tries from Ioane – he left Sonny Bill Williams, among others, for dead as he roared off out of the blocks – and the slippery Genia.
Otherwise the seven-time title-winning Crusaders probably would have done just enough, despite fatigue so clearly setting in progressively as the clock counted down, to register an incredible eighth.
Their legendarily big push at scrum time was once more a lethal weapon, even if maybe not to quite the same extent it had been at Newlands in goring the Stormers just a week earlier.
Will the All Blacks brains trust be gutsy enough – if that is the right description – to break up for national purposes the awesome Crusaders front-row of Wyatt Crockett, Corey Flynn and the rotating Franks brothers?
One area where the Cantabrians did struggle on Saturday was in retaining their own lineout ball at key moments, something to keep South African eyes extremely interested, of course.
Both the Reds and Crusaders showed terrific, sobering energy in the first hour or so at committing good numbers to the breakdown and counter-rucking with ferocity, resulting in an array of turnovers both ways.
If there was a helpful message to Peter de Villiers of some kind, it was that the Springboks, however confrontational and attrition-geared they may want their forwards to be, must still keep mobility in mind and also contemplate whether conditioning procedures domestically are really where they could be.
For me it’s a no-brainer that a fully-fit Heinrich Brussow, for his whippet-like zeal to reach and then get stuck in at the breakdown, must remain a desirable objective, and that Schalk Burger’s unrelenting vigour and passion has to be accommodated somewhere in the starting loose trio as well.
Any questions people may have over his Stormers captaincy philosophy must not be allowed to interfere with his ongoing value as a player – he was consistently, constructively “involved” this Super Rugby season to a far greater degree than various other loosies in the broad Bok squad and also kept his personal discipline, once an impediment, in largely good order.
Yet as mentioned earlier, it would also be foolhardy to make too many World Cup tactical judgements based on a Super Rugby showpiece ...
Cape Town – The Wallabies are sure to be licking their lips now as well about the prospect of possibly unseating South Africa as World Cup champions in a few weeks’ time.
While the Reds’ deserved, maiden Super Rugby title success in Brisbane on Saturday -- eclipsing the travel-weary Crusaders 18-13 – won’t have done too much to quell New Zealand optimism for the looming, home-staged tournament, it will have helped keep Aussie tails up in terms of their own prospects of wrestling back the Webb Ellis Cup.
With the Robbie Deans-coached national side more and more likely to be dominated now by players from the Queensland franchise – more customarily among the whipping boys of Super Rugby not much more than two years ago, amazingly – it seems clear that 1991 and 1999 champions Australia will be highly competitive at the World Cup.
Remember that they are currently ranked a shade ahead of the Springboks at No 2 on the IRB rankings anyway, and will only be having to make the short passage across a rather familiar “ditch” for the global get-together from mid-September.
The Wallabies will be overwhelming favourites to top Pool C at the World Cup, with only Ireland as vaguely realistic threats to their comfortable advance from it as winners.
Keep in mind, too, that despite the emphatic nature of the All Blacks’ retention of the Bledisloe Cup last year – and effortless romp to the Tri-Nations 2010 honours at generally the same time – the Aussies do have bragging rights from the last Test match between the two Australasian powers: a 26-24 win in a dead-rubber additional fixture in Hong Kong late last year.
So a country so often distracted by various other “ball” codes, has an increasingly credible chance of success in neighbouring New Zealand.
There is still this year’s condensed Tri-Nations to consider, although as a gauge of World Cup fortunes it will probably be quite limited, especially with the Boks so bluntly signalling their World Cup priorities by naming a hugely diluted squad for the away leg later this month.
Nevertheless, there was no special evidence from the latest Super Rugby final to give the Bok camp any extra headaches with the RWC in mind – if anything it served as a reminder, with its often helter-skelter momentum and breathless in-field focus, that this tournament remains markedly different in character to top-tier Test rugby and particularly business-end activity at World Cups.
That is not to say that many South African analysts and observers would not have been concerned at confirmation in Brisbane, once more, that from a pure skills and panache perspective – and not just in the backlines, mind – we remain the poorest cousins among the southern hemisphere rugby giants at present.
Certainly if the Wallabies can put together a pack of sufficient set-piece muscle, they will be ever more capable of bringing into powerful play “X-factor” customers like the Reds’ thrilling No 9 and 10 alliance of Will Genia and Quade Cooper and that bundle of left wing dynamite Digby Ioane.
Although the team ethic at the Reds has been hugely impressive all season, it is probably no coincidence that victory on Saturday was largely secured on the basis of spectacular, long-range solo tries from Ioane – he left Sonny Bill Williams, among others, for dead as he roared off out of the blocks – and the slippery Genia.
Otherwise the seven-time title-winning Crusaders probably would have done just enough, despite fatigue so clearly setting in progressively as the clock counted down, to register an incredible eighth.
Their legendarily big push at scrum time was once more a lethal weapon, even if maybe not to quite the same extent it had been at Newlands in goring the Stormers just a week earlier.
Will the All Blacks brains trust be gutsy enough – if that is the right description – to break up for national purposes the awesome Crusaders front-row of Wyatt Crockett, Corey Flynn and the rotating Franks brothers?
One area where the Cantabrians did struggle on Saturday was in retaining their own lineout ball at key moments, something to keep South African eyes extremely interested, of course.
Both the Reds and Crusaders showed terrific, sobering energy in the first hour or so at committing good numbers to the breakdown and counter-rucking with ferocity, resulting in an array of turnovers both ways.
If there was a helpful message to Peter de Villiers of some kind, it was that the Springboks, however confrontational and attrition-geared they may want their forwards to be, must still keep mobility in mind and also contemplate whether conditioning procedures domestically are really where they could be.
For me it’s a no-brainer that a fully-fit Heinrich Brussow, for his whippet-like zeal to reach and then get stuck in at the breakdown, must remain a desirable objective, and that Schalk Burger’s unrelenting vigour and passion has to be accommodated somewhere in the starting loose trio as well.
Any questions people may have over his Stormers captaincy philosophy must not be allowed to interfere with his ongoing value as a player – he was consistently, constructively “involved” this Super Rugby season to a far greater degree than various other loosies in the broad Bok squad and also kept his personal discipline, once an impediment, in largely good order.
Yet as mentioned earlier, it would also be foolhardy to make too many World Cup tactical judgements based on a Super Rugby showpiece ...
