By Ian Ransom
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Super Rugby’s credibility as a competition will be under the microscope this weekend as fading hopes of an Australian revival meet the cold reality of New Zealand dominance in a much-criticised playoffs format.
In a 12-team competition, three Australian sides have qualified for the generous eight-team finals series but collectively face a huge task to avoid a New Zealand whitewash in the opening quarter-finals.
The Queensland Reds will have to defy a 23-year losing streak in Christchurch on Friday to turn the tables on the Canterbury Crusaders, a week after falling 28-15 to the powerful South Islanders.
The rebuilding New South Wales Waratahs have never won a final away from home and are long odds to end that drought in Hamilton on Saturday against a Waikato Chiefs side that have won six of their last seven games against Australian opponents.
The ACT Brumbies, the top Australian side with a fourth-placed finish at the end of the regular season, may be best placed to survive the weekend when they take on the Wellington Hurricanes at home on Saturday.
But they enter the clash on a losing streak since suffering a 37-26 reality check by the Crusaders at Canberra Stadium.
Defeat would spell the end of an era for a Brumbies side who have set the benchmark in Australia for much of the past decade while failing to deliver a title.
Coach Dan McKellar and a string of Wallabies, including front row forwards Scott Sio and Folau Faingaa, and fullback Tom Banks, are moving on at the end of the season and Saturday will likely be their final game in Canberra.
“If you go out there just thinking that emotion is going to win you the game, then you’ll leave disappointed,” McKellar told his players this week.
“We’ve got to make sure that tactically and physically, we turn up in the right headspace and also execute well.”
The other quarter-final is an all-New Zealand affair, with the table-topping Auckland Blues facing the eighth-ranked Otago Highlanders, a repeat of last year’s decider in the one-off Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition.
By any measure, Tony Brown’s Highlanders have had a forgettable season, compiling a 4-10 losing record.
They lost their last two games but still managed to sneak into the playoffs, much to the disdain of some fans, and earned a chance to knock out the Blues at Eden Park on Saturday.
“Some people may not think we deserve to be in the playoff,” Highlanders and All Blacks scrumhalf Aaron Smith tweeted.
“We don’t make the rules. But will give the Blues everything we got.”
That may not be enough against the rampaging Blues, who are riding a 13-game winning streak since a one-point loss to the Hurricanes in round one.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
