Super Rugby Game Review: Waratahs vs Highlanders 10th March 2012

Coverage Viewed:

Sky Sports 1 HD (New Zealand feed)

Commentators:

Grant Nisbett, Jeff Wilson

Commentating Highlight:

The Kiwis take their rugby so seriously that anything besides a biased, truthful (not factual) call of the game is impossible. In the end their lack of a sense of humour made them look a little silly. In the final 10 minutes of the game the Highlanders were given a penalty near the half way mark. Waratahs fly half Halangahu, with a big smile on his face, tested the wind in the indoor stadium with a handful of grass when indicating he would take a shot at goal. Referee Bryce Lawrence laughed, Halangahu giggled and the Kiwi commentators thought he was seriously testing the wind. They picked on Halangahu for forgetting he was inside and even went so far as to say there may be a breeze in the corners of the stadium near the doors. Oh boy.

Now Onto The Game:

Referee:

Bryce Lawrence. Seems I’m doomed to watch rugby refereed by this ass clown.

Referee Performance:

All kinds of awful. Get the thesaurus out, look up ‘terrible’ and ‘biased’ you could use any one of the synonyms to describe Bryce Lawrence’s performance. Penalty after penalty, very few of which were actually a correct call. Ben Robinson was the victim of 2 awful calls in his own half, one which led to the eventual game winning penalty kick. He was caught on the wrong side of the ruck and tried to roll away but Highlanders scrum half Jimmy Cowan basically jumped on him and cried foul straight away. There was more milking going on than at a Mainland dairy. Then there was the constant infringements by the Highlanders at the breakdown. They won the breakdowns constantly because there was always 2 or 3 of them laying all over the ruck playing the ball with their hands and yet, no calls. Then there was that awful call against the Waratahs on the wheeled scrum late in the 2nd half. Not even the one eyed Kiwi commentators could fathom that one.  THEN as McCutcheon was laying on the ground almost passing out from pain after his broken ankle (more on that later), Bryce Lawrence is giving the medical staff a hard time about taking so long. So not only is he a one eyed, useless referee, he’s also a prick. Just abysmal.

Score Breakdown:

Waratahs 17 Highlanders 18

Scorers:

Highlanders

Tries – Smith, Hardie

Pen – Slade 2

Conv – Slade 1

Waratahs

Tries – McCutcheon

Pen – Halangahu 4

Conv – Zip

Random Observations:

Few in this one. The game was great to watch so I didn’t really take much notice of anything going on around it. Nice stadium they’ve built there in Dunedin, although I miss Carisbrook.

Game Highlights:

This was a great physical game. Both teams played hard and fast and by the 65th minute there were lots of tired players on both sides. I think there may be some injuries reported after this one.

Kicking was awful from both sides. Early on the Highlanders missed 2 fairly easy penalty kicks and Halangahu’s missed conversion on the McCutcheon try was… a crapshoot. The Waratahs can look back on that after losing by one point and.. well, best not to talk about that.

This was a game with 2 sides who had completely different tactics. The Waratahs wanted to play a positional game, attempting to kick the ball deep with regularity and not running with the ball from their own half. The Highlanders wanted to keep that ball in hand and run, run, run. Despite the Waratahs holding the lead for most of the game and potting penalty kicks here and there the Highlanders stuck to their guns and were rewarded in the end with 2 good tries to the Waratahs 1.

Speaking of the Waratahs try, let’s run through that one. Highlanders had the ball in their own half and decided to kick it. Slade dropped it onto his left boot and Waratahs flanker Patrick McCutcheon charged it down with great precision, collected the ball and stormed to the try line. The Highlanders player tackled him awkwardly from behind, McCutcheon’s ankle snagged strangely and snapped like a piece of celery.

That broken ankle of Patrick McCutcheon's

The most impressive thing from McCutcheon was that he still scored the try and it wasn’t until a few seconds after that he almost passed out in pain. His teammates were congratulating him as he lay on the ground, probably not realising that his foot had almost fallen off. That’s Patrick’s season done.

The game finished in a flurry, with the Waratahs being rewarded a penalty on the 80th minute and choosing to take the scrum in the offensive zone. They won clean ball, spread it to the backs, worked through a few phases and I was waiting, just waiting for Bryce Lawrence to call a penalty. He didn’t. In the end the Highlanders forced an error, jumped on the ball as it popped out the side of a ruck and Cowan tried to kick it into touch. He chose the wrong side to kick for though and it didn’t even come close to touch. His winger had to take the ball and rush it over the line to secure the win.

Overall I think the Waratahs were ripped off by bad refereeing and by poor goal kicking. If they can’t kick well they would be best to run the ball. They have a strong forward pack and talent in the backline, why not use it?