NSW vs Queensland Super Rugby: Waratahs score crucial win over Reds

NSW rode a 16-5 penalty count to score a cliffhanger 29-26 win over Queensland in a classic interstate match that rugby needed.

Michael Hooper of NSW scores a try. Picture: Darren England

New South Wales rode a 16-5 penalty count to a cliffhanging 29-26 victory over Queensland at Suncorp Stadium tonight, their seventh straight victory in the Super Rugby interstate match.

It might have been a heartbreaking defeat for the Reds, losing to a 77th minute Bernard Foley penalty goal, but it was just the interstate match that NSW needed – and so too Australian rugby. It was played at a cracking pace and at match’s end, Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson was rueing the fact that it was the only time this season that the two old rivals will meet.

“A game like that, it makes you want another one,” said Gibson.

Bernard Foley rises during the Super Rugby game between the Queensland Reds and the NSW Waratahs. Picture: Darren England

Reds coach Nick Stiles would agree, but for entirely different reasons. He has been meticulous in not criticising referees this season but he had no doubt that the lopsided penalty count influenced the outcome of the match.

“All we wanted was a fair go out there and I don’t think we got that,” Stiles fumed.

It was not so much that New Zealand referee Paul Williams penalised the Reds unfairly, despite the lopsided count, but that he failed to penalise the Waratahs for what looked like blatant errors.

There was a sense of history tonight as the Queensland side ran on not in their red jerseys but in their traditional maroon – complete with navy blue shorts – after Stiles had secretly prepared a surprise strip, with none of his players being aware of it until they entered the dressing room. The throwback to the outfit that Mark Loane and John Eales once wore was a once-only switch, never to be repeated, and Stiles was bitterly disappointed it did not end in the desired result.

A crowd of 18,781 booed Williams off the field at halftime and again at fulltime and certainly the 9-2 second half penalty count to the Tahs allowed them to camp in Queensland’s territory and just back their defence.

Waratahs and Wallabies five-eighth Foley missed his first shot at goal but thereafter was flawless off the kicking tee, landing seven goals from eight attempts to negate the Reds’ four-tries-to-two advantage. Critically, he punished the high shot by Reds reserve hooker Alex Mafi on NSW winger Cameron Clark to push the Tahs ahead for only the second time in the match. More critically still, the Waratahs were able to dig deep and repeal wave after wave of Queensland attack to hang on at the death.

The Reds were tactically deficient, with no one recognising the need to put the ball in behind their NSW wingers. Instead, they hoisted the ball time and again – which simply fed Israel Folau’s peerless high-ball skills. Quade Cooper, clearly playing with an injured left knee and well below his best, struggled to impose himself on the game and certainly from Michael Cheika’s perspective, there is only one choice at five-eighth – Foley.

Both sides were playing for the season and it may also have been that NSW coach Gibson’s job was on the line – at least as far as some sections of the Sydney media were concerned – but he was delighted with what his players showed him when their backs were to the wall.

“I wanted to see commitment, urgency and real intent and I saw that tonight. Indeed, both teams showed it.”

NSW skipper Michael Hooper played an amazing game, scoring a match-turning try just on halftime, rallying his troops and being at the core of a 20-10 turnover count, though his opposite number George Smith also excelled.

Queensland scored three tries to two in the first half yet led only 19-17 at the break, as the Tahs answered every score with one of their own.

The Reds certainly were making inroads and fullback Karmichael Hunt would have done his campaign for a belated Wallabies jersey a world of good as he scored the first try off a Scott Higginbotham bust, and then, soon after, brilliantly set up a touchdown for giant lock Lukan Tui.

But Nick Phipps, relishing his comeback to the NSW side by hounding his team around the field, got the Tahs underway when he smuggled the ball over the line for a 19th minute try. But it was the crucial minutes just before halftime that were to prove critical. Sime brilliant sleight-of-hand from Foley put Hooper over next to the posts in the 38th minute, as wi Clark drew the defence as he ran a clever dummy line.

Then, right on halftime, winger Isaia Perese went from hero – he raced through onto Cooper’s clever crosskick as he was being chased down after an intercept to score in the 30th minute – to villain when he tackled the man in the air and earned a yellow card.

As it happened, the Reds scored in his absence as hooker Stephen Moore crossed at the tail end of a familiar rolling maul – though not the Brumbies this time – for his first Queensland try since 2006. But Perese has set the tone for the Reds players. It was a dumb penalty – and it was the first of many.

Karmichael Hunt of the Reds is tackled. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images