Waratahs brimming with confidence after snapping 722-day, 40-game Kiwi losing streak

THE Waratahs ended a 722-day, 40-game losing streak in Super Rugby by Australian teams against New Zealanders but NSW are far from satisfied.

Waratahs celebrate scoring against the Highlanders.

DING-Dong the streak is dead, and while they claim to have never been hung up on hoodoo talk, the Waratahs now believe they can torch another one by going back-to-back against Kiwis next weekend.

The Waratahs ended a 722-day, 40-game losing streak in Super Rugby by Australian teams against New Zealanders by beating the Highlanders on Saturday at Allianz Stadium.

It helped that the Highlanders played with 14 men for 62 minutes - and 13 for 10 minutes - but the Waratahs, who were leading when the cards came, believe they would have won anyway and the visitors admitted NSW played “outstandingly well”.

Waratahs celebrate scoring against the Highlanders.

Psychologically it was a hugely important win for the Waratahs and while captain Michael Hooper maintained Australia’s collective Kiwi losing streak was never discussed, he admitted it was nice to have hoodoo-related questions now behind them.

Indeed, such is the transformative effect of a trans-Tasman win, the Waratahs head to Hamilton this week firmly believing they can now beat the Chiefs on home turf.

No Aussie team has beaten Kiwi teams in successive matches since the Waratahs did the job in May, 2015, and the Chiefs are coming home from Africa after losing to the Sharks at the weekend.

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But it isn’t just the victory over the Highlanders that has seen confidence flooding back into the Waratahs’ camp. It is the collective result of a strong month against Kiwi teams, where the mental gap slowly but surely closed.

A narrow loss to the Blues was “frustrating” and the Waratahs coming within a whisker of beating the Crusaders for the first time in 14 years in Christchurch a week later was gut-wrenching, too.

But it proved to the NSW players what could be done, according to Damian Fitzpatrick.

“We have been building each week and for the boys to see the process finish, and really work and achieve what we have been preparing for, it’s nice,” he said.

“It’s huge, getting a win and getting into winning culture.

“We can take confidence from the win, but also know that we can perform not just here, but also over there and last week (against the Crusaders) showed that.

“We probably should have won that game. A few different things change, we manage the game better and we probably win. So we can take that confidently and know we can perform when we go away as well.”

Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t believe Australian teams are inferior to Kiwi teams in “technical/tactical”, it was just about mindset.

Curtis Rona grabbed a five-pointer against the Highlanders.

“I don’t think Australian teams are far off the ball, in terms of the way we play the game tactically or technically. I think there was just a mindset we needed to go out there and do whatever it takes to win the game. If it was going to be through a scrap, so be it. But we were able to put some nice shape together,” he said.

The Waratahs have taken a five-point lead at the top of the Aussie conference, with five rounds left to play. It is a handy buffer but the last four are all intra-conference, and the lead could be wiped quickly.

Winning the conference and securing a finals spot is not as token as in past years, either.

The middle third of Super Rugby this year has seen uncertainty reinjected and New Zealand come back closer to the pack.

Damien Fitzpatrick on the charge.

Injuries and All Black rests played a part but three of five Kiwi teams lost at the weekend, and where the New Zealand dominance saw them win 71% and 74% wins in all games in the last two seasons, that victory rate is down to 64% in 2018.

Throw in other landscape-shifting results at the weekend - the Sunwolves beating the Stormers, the Jaguares winning their fifth straight game and the Reds almost upsetting the Hurricanes - and suddenly a big chunk of teams believe the competition is open again.

“It’s probably the most even competition we have had for a while, and tonight was a good example of that,” Highlanders coach Aaron Mauger said.

“The Waratahs played outstandingly well and the Sunwolves had a good result against the Stormers too, so I think the comp has probably evened out a little bit.”

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Originally published as Waratahs brimming with confidence after snapping 722-day, 40-game Kiwi losing streak