The real issue in the wash up of the Super Rugby final

Richie Mo’unga of the Crusaders celebrates his try in the Super Rugby Pacific Final against the Chiefs at FMG Stadium in Hamilton.
Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz

Opinion – Rugby is often a game of inches, so you’re probably not going to win if you’re giving up yards. The problem with the Super Rugby final on Saturday night is who was giving them up, and when.

If you want to know the key stat in the Crusaders’ 25-20 win over the Chiefs on, this is it: 22 of the now 12-time champions’ points were scored when they had a one-man advantage. The Crusaders don’t usually even need that to win, so the Chiefs should have been kicking themselves more than the amount of times Richie Mo’unga was doing just that to the ball and setting his side up with valuable field position.

The Chiefs played half an hour of the game with 14 men, and really they were pretty lucky it wasn’t more. Given that Ben O’Keeffe and his assistants were jeered loudly by Chiefs fans post match, who had watched their team give up a 6-0 penalty deficit at the start of the game, it’s probably worth looking at the key decisions that were made.

But first, it’s important to note that all three men who were shown yellow cards in the final were All Blacks, and one of them is the current captain. That tells a story in itself regarding what is coming up: the biggest campaign of their careers in France as the All Blacks attempt to win back the World Cup.

Anton Lienert-Brown (56 tests) laid out Dallas McLeod off a kickoff. Problem was, he’d clashed heads with the newly named All Black bolter and it was obvious he was going for a sit down after the tackle was replayed for the refs to see. Really though, the big surprise was that Lienert-Brown didn’t have his card upgraded to red, given how many incidents just like it have ended that way – most notably Angus Ta’avao last year against Ireland.

The judiciary certainly didn’t agree, it didn’t take long after the game had finished to cite Lienert-Brown. The irony being that if he does get suspended, it will be McLeod that benefits the most as he moves up the All Black depth chart.

Referee Ben O’Keeffe during the final.
Photo: Photosport

The card that the Chiefs could feel the most aggrieved about was the next one, to Luke Jacobson (12 tests). The number eight had been having a great game, clearly having been sent on a search and destroy mission against the Crusaders’ ball carriers. Given that the Chiefs were defending in their 22, O’Keeffe had just warned Sam Cane about the penalty count mounting up, Jacobson was unlucky to be the next man to infringe and was sent on his way for not supporting his body weight at the breakdown.

While it’s debatable whether it was a penalty at all – Jacobson was certainly in a 50/50 position and it definitely could have been a fantastic bit of defensive work in another circumstance – the fact that the warning had gone out should have prohibited any margin pushing by the Chiefs. Instead, he had to watch on from the sin bin as Codie Taylor crashed over for a crucial try.

Then the Chiefs found themselves without Cane for the climax of the game. Like Jacobson, the situation he was in made any margin of error miniscule. Unlike his loose forward partner, Cane’s indiscretion was far more obvious. If Jacobson’s yellow was costly, Cane’s was even more so, off the resulting penalty Taylor scored again and the Crusaders simply tackled their way to victory.

From an All Black point of view, it was very poor. Key moments went about as poorly as possible, which surely must lead to a lot to work on before the Rugby Championship and World Cup. The standard of refereeing is going to be far stricter, so Lienert-Brown never would have come back if that was a test match.

The refereeing wasn’t perfect, absolutely. The forward pass that the Crusaders got away with in the first half was almost comical in how blatant it was, leaving Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan to rue it post-match. But what was also very poor was the fact that he was doing it by himself – Cane did not accompany him to the post-match media conference, which is a terrible look for a current All Black captain. Given last year’s All Black media misadventures, it’s another area of their soon-to-be-cleaned-out structure they should probably look at before the test season starts.

For Chiefs fans, though, it’s okay to be upset at the way the title slipped through your fingers after such a dominant season and home ground advantage for the final. It’s probably better to point your fingers at your own players, most of whom should really know better, before carving up the officials.