There’s no denying it’s been a terrible year for Australian rugby.
No Aussie Super Rugby team has beaten New Zealand opposition in 2017. Out of 25 games they didn’t win a single encounter.
2014 Super Rugby champions the Waratahs only won four games all year out of 15, a terrible year. NSW finished 16th in the 18-team competition and coach Daryl Gibson is under huge pressure to keep his job.
The Rebels got the wooden spoon, with just a single victory from their 15 fixtures. They were dire. Along with the Western Force, the Melbourne club are facing the axe from the competition. The Force weren’t a whole lot better, winning only six games. The Reds, champions back in 2011, won four games to continue the malaise.
STORY:
Then there’s the Brumbies. They only won six matches, but because of the convoluted conference system they topped the Australian conference and have been gifted a semi-final. Without that system the ACT franchise should have finished ninth and missed out on the finals.
No Australian team has a winning record. Never have Australia’s sides performed so badly in the history of Super Rugby.
So with the Super Rugby knockout finals kicking off tomorrow, the Brumbies will be the only team flying the Australian flag. They face the Hurricanes in Canberra on Friday night.
The Hurricanes, of course, have only lost three games all year. They a dangerous team in great form.
To say the Brumbies haven’t got a prayer is not over the top. Even the official Super Rugby system admits Stephen Larkham’s team are “heavy underdogs”. They were pumped 56-21 by the Hurricanes back in Napier in April. The Wellington side are racking up tries for fun this season and have scored more points than any other team. They have also made more breaks than the opposition and possess the best defence.
They are stacked with All Blacks, from Nene Milner-Skudder to Jordie Barrett, Ngani Laumpae, Julian Savea, Beauden Barrett, TJ Perenara, Ardie Savea to Dane Coles and Cory Jane. It is an outfit full of attacking menace, speed and running threats.
The Brumbies have been hit by injury and are missing both Kyle Godwin and Aiden Toua. Their backline has been decimated with Tom Banks, in his first year of Super Rugby, starting at fullback, another rookie in Wharenui Hawera at fly-half and James Dargaville on one wing. The only good news is the return of Christian Lealiifano, who has been battling leukaemia, on the replacements bench.
The Brumbies head coach Stephen Larkham is set to leave the club at the end of this year. This Hurricanes quarter-final is to be his last game in charge, before he joins the Wallabies staff full-time, barring an almighty miracle. Lakrham is believing, at least publicly, that the Brumbies can beat form, statistics, recent performance, history and logic.
“We’re pretty happy with the way we’ve prepped for this final,” Larkham said.
“It’s a brand-new season now, Benny Alexander summed it up in the changerooms after the [Chiefs] game. Everything before this week is irrelevant, it comes down to who wins these next couple of games.”
But unless the almighty intervenes, Australia’s Super Rugby annus horriblis ends on Friday. And it will come not a moment too soon.
