THE Super 14 final was a great game. It was tough, compelling and non-stop. One of the many unpredictable breakouts, after a phase of play that lasted several gut-wrenching minutes, led to Lachie Turner scoring a kick-and-chase try after the Waratahs had almost given a try away at their end of the field.
What got into Greg Martin's head in his post-match interview to ask Phil Waugh and then Ewen McKenzie the stupid question of what would they have done differently if they had another chance? The question was the equivalent of putting in the boot when a player is trapped in the ruck. The battered, bloodied and smashed Waugh dismissed the question: "You don't get another chance." And McKenzie made this point: "We were criticised last time [the 2005 final] because we kicked the ball too much. Now we'll be criticised for playing rugby."
Not by this column. McKenzie has left the Waratahs in much better shape, on and off the field, than when he took over. It was the correct game plan to take the play to the Crusaders with the ball in hand, smashing the ball up in the forwards and then moving it wide to the outside backs, and to confront the Crusaders with fierce attack and defence. The first try, after a superb kick from Kurtley Beale to the outstanding Turner (the player of the match for the Waratahs), followed the plan to perfection. The problem was that on the day the Crusaders were the better side.
The Crusaders spent almost 14 minutes inside the Waratahs' 22, compared with the three minutes by the Waratahs inside the Crusaders' 22. The Crusaders had 62 per cent of possession. Instead of kicking long and running the ball back through a fractured defensive line (a traditional Crusaders tactic), Daniel Carter launched a series of midfield bombs, in the manner used by the Pumas so successfully in last year's World Cup. Once the Crusaders turned the Waratahs' defensive wall, they were able to attack down the middle of the field.
Before the final, McKenzie mentioned that the Crusaders were a 13-point better team at home. They had won 32 out of their past 34 games at Christchurch before the final. Phil Kearns, in his commentary, came out with another interesting statistic as the teams went into the dressing rooms at half-time, with the Waratahs leading 12-11. In five out of their past eight matches, the Crusaders had been behind at half-time and had come back to win all but one of those matches. In big-time rugby, the side that is ahead at half-time will invariably win the match, except it seems if they are playing the Crusaders. The fitness of the Crusaders is an obvious factor, as is home-ground advantage and, clearly, the accurate analysis provided by coach Robbie Deans at the half-time break.
The Heineken Cup is European rugby's equivalent of the Super 14 tournament. But as Munster's boring 16-13 win over Toulouse in the final two weeks ago revealed, there is no similarity in the quality of play. I counted nine stoppages of play in the Heineken Cup final. The first stoppage at Christchurch came in the 51st minute. Munster successfully played slow, witless rugby. With 20 minutes of play left, Munster went into a plod-and-flop series of forward drives, with players standing over the ball like penguins protecting their eggs. Rugby writer Stephen Jones reported: "It was never remotely a great game of rugby, or even a good one: there was grievously little skill, flow or sporting majesty."
Jones, the scourge of southern hemisphere rugby, couldn't bring himself, unfortunately, to come to the obvious conclusion: the ELVs are needed to allow the sort of vibrant, hard-shouldered, exciting rugby on big occasions that we saw in the Super final, and which was not seen in last year's World Cup final or in the Heineken Cup final.
