TEIVOVO Super Rugby Pacific Podcast

Talofa lava, Malo lelei’i Bula vinaka and welcome to TEIVOVOrugby’s Super Rugby podcast Season One episode 04 again, sorry I got my numbers mixed up last time – anyway I’m Culden Kamea.

This is my weekly podcast on the Fijian Drua, Moana Pasifika and other teams in the Super Rugby Pacific 2023 competition, plus Team Fijiana of course when they start defending their Super W title in Australia very soon.

In Super Rugby Round 4 last weekend:
the Hurricanes 34-17 the NSW Tahs.
the Chiefs 44-25 the Rebels
the Blues 28-34 Crusaders
the Brumbies 62-36 Moana Pasifika
the Highlanders 43-35 the Force

A couple of big issues that I want to focus on are:
the Yellow card, no-pushing-in-the-scrums, 13-man rule
the naming of Scott “Razor” Robertson as All Blacks Head Coach

Competing against any team with 15 players is tough enough, but as the Blues found out against the Crusaders last weekend, with two men short, it’s nigh on impossible.

The Blues ended up conceding two tries in the 10-minute period, going from 21-19 up to 31-21 down and like the Fijian Drua against the NSW Waratahs the previous round, that was pretty much game over.

So how did the situation arise?
The Blues losing both starting props – Alex Hodgman and James Lay – to injury inside the opening quarter hour. They then lost one of their replacement props – yellow-carded for a cynical infringement on the goal-line.

So the World Rugby Law 3.18 states: “Only when no replacement front-row player is available is any other player permitted to play in the front row” – the Blues had to inject reserve Hooker Kurt Eklund into the game, because, even though he is not a prop, he is at least a front-rower.

They then had to drop another player to accommodate that, with blindside flanker Cameron Suafoa the unlucky man.

But here’s where things get tricky - there is a quirk in the law whereby a team forcing uncontested scrums must be ‘punished’ for doing so by losing another player.

This law was introduced following a controversial Wales v Georgia Test in 2017.

This situation also arose in round two in Melbourne, where the Fijian Drua were forced to 13 players in their 46-17 loss to the Waratahs.

So the Blues opted to take off fullback Stephen Perofeta, and with law 3.15 stating: “Uncontested scrums as a result of a sending off, temporary suspension or injury must be played with eight players per side in the forwards”, the Blues were on a hiding to nothing trying to defend with only five backs.

Meanwhile, the Highlanders produced a final quarter surge to claim their first win of the Super Rugby season 43-17 against the Force, but a growing injury list and a misfiring attack means they have a lot of work to do.

In a scrappy, error-riddled game dominated by kicking, the Highlanders’ attack again struggled to get going for lo