Six talking points from a five-star weekend

Six talking points from the weekend’s Super Rugby Pacific and Six Nations.

New Zealand’s cadre of devoted rugby moaners will struggle to find fault with the amazing game at Eden Park onSaturday night that the Crusaders won 34-28 against the Blues.

Exciting tries? Nine of them, and every one came from running, open rugby, not from a tedious lineout maul.

Drama? The lead changed three times, and in the last 12 minutes, the Blues twice lost the ball on the line for what would have been the winning of the game.

Controversy? By the bucket load. Poor Blues prop Jordan Lay may wake screaming if he ever dreams about the horrific 10 minutes he had to spend sideline in the naughty boy chair, watching his team reduced to 13 men. He’d yielded to temptation in what no doubt felt like the dark, hidden recesses of a ruck, and sneaked an illegal hand on the ball. His yellow card turned into a nightmare because, with no uninjured props to replace him, the scrums became no-push zones, and the Blues had to take a second man off the field to make up for the scrum advantage the Crusaders lost by not being allowed to drive the scrums.

By the sound of the booing every time Crusader Richie Mo’unga took a kick at goal, the stage has been reached where beating the Crusaders means as much to Blues fans as getting the better of any team from Auckland has always meant to the Christchurch faithful.

Said a smiling coach Scott Robertson after the game: “Have we really been that terrible? We only lost two games.” Certainly the defensive wall the Crusaders threw up at Eden Park suggested they still don’t lack team spirit and backbone.

What you can guarantee is Friday’s game in Christchurch against the Brumbies will more firmly establish where the Crusaders are heading, as will the game on Saturday (April 1) in Hamilton when the Blues meet the impressive Chiefs.

With two star-studded teams, it was a fascinating twist that non-All Blacks rarely in the spotlight were outstanding on both sides.

The Blues backline was more incisive when Bryce Heem replaced Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, and loose forward Adrian Choat was bloody but unbowed, competing fiercely at every breakdown.

Crusaders second-five Dallas McLeod, who was born and grew up in Methven just down the road from Mt Hutt, had his best game for the Crusaders, and Fergus Burke, usually a first-five, was impeccable at fullback.

The Chiefs rested a big bunch of their usual starters for the game against the Rebels in Hamilton and for 15 minutes it looked like a mistake.

But then totemic Rebels player Reece Hodge left with a badly cut hand at about the time three Chiefs players started to seize control - Bryn Gatland, hugely cool and collected at first-five; loose forward Pita Gus Sowakula, smashing into tacklers as if they were the selectors who dropped him from the All Blacks; and Shaun Stevenson, quicksilver at the back.

The final 44-25 win for the Chiefs was eventually another sure step on the way to the finals.

Beating England at rugby in Dublin will always be a plus for the Irish. When their 29-16 victory just after St Patrick’s Day also nailed a Grand Slam in the Six Nations competition, the occasion was well nigh perfect.

Keeping in mind that across the Channel France were beating Wales, 41-28, and a week ago had humiliated England 53-10, the evidence is overwhelming that Ireland and France are the first division in Six Nations, Scotland the second division, and England, Wales, and Italy the third raters.

At the World Cup, all contenders will need two things - powerful, skilled, fit forwards to deal with, in particular, the Irish pack; and hugely organised, accurate, quick-thinking defenders to handle France’s wonderful ability to improvise on attack.