Super Rugby AU: NSW Waratahs go down in glory despite ACT Brumbies 24-23 win

The ACT Brumbies have become the first Australian team on 200 wins but the Waratahs impressed despite a 24-23 loss.

Issak Fines of the ACT Brumbies scores a try during the round-3 Super Rugby AU match against the NSW Waratahs at ANZ Stadium in Sydney on Saturday. Picture: Getty Images

The ACT Brumbies became the first Australian team to 200 wins, a tally only exceeded by the Crusaders, as they defeated NSW 24-23 in Sydney on Saturday night, but even so it was the Waratahs who turned in their most impressive display of 2020.

From the 14th minute to the 77th, the Waratahs led the most consistent team in Australia in recent years, reducing the Brumbies lineout to rubble and inflicting a significant amount of damage on their scrum in the process.

After having very much entrusted this season to his younger brigade, Tahs coach Rob Penney looked to have found the right selection mix as centre Karmichael Hunt, No 8 Jack Dempsey and loosehead Tom Robertson all performed exceptionally in their first run-on appearance of the Super Rugby AU competition.

After painfully inept matches last weekend in the Sydney rain, the competition has been ignited this weekend, with the Queensland Reds forced to work for the full 80 minutes to achieve a 31-24 victory over the Western Force in Brisbane on Friday and the Brumbies recording their fifth straight win over the Tahs in another thriller at the Olympic Stadium.

Brumbies players celebrate victory in the round-3 Super Rugby AU match against the Waratahs. Picture: Getty Images

Even with their lineout crumbling around them and their scrum in regular strife, the Brumbies found a way to stay in touch, aided by two rare missed shots at goal by NSW five-eighth Will Harrison.

Noah Lolesio of the Brumbies left the field injured. Picture: Getty Images

At one point, the 20-year-old had looked set to break the NSW record of 18 consecutive goals by his now coach, Peter Hewat, but after taking his tally to 13, he then missed twice. Had he punished Scott Sio’s offside penalty at the start of the fourth quarter, Harrison would have pushed the Tahs out to an nine-point lead but he was astray and the score remained 23-17.

A six-point advantage against a team with the attacking threats of the Brumbies never looked enough, but strong Waratahs defence kept them at bay until three minutes from fulltime when replacement halfback Issak Fines, the former Western Force playmaker, spotted two tiring forwards, Lachie Swinton and Will Harris, and speared between them for a try beside the posts.

When Bayley Kuenzle – on as replacement for the injured Noah Lolesio, who came off on the half-hour with a damaged hamstring – slotted the conversion, the Brumbies still had to defend their lead for two agonising minutes. They almost paid the price for trying to run down the clock when the ball went loose and NSW prop Tetera Faulkner dived for it, only to lose it forwards and the Brumbies were able to escape with the win.

It was a game in which referee Angus Gardner’s rulings governed the momentum shifts. In the first half, he handed the Tahs seven penalties in succession and they skipped out to a 20-5 advantage.

Their first try came about when halfback Mitch Short was collared at the back of a driving maul but slipped the ball to hooker Tom Horton for a starting debut try. But the second would have done justice to Beauden Barrett as Harrison, alerted to the opportunity by outside centre Joey Walton, took a quick tap and then angled a delightful angled kick in behind the Brumbies line for winger James Ramm to chase down for a stunning try.

But the Brumbies have won too many close ones to allow themselves to be rattled by a lopsided scoreboard and they quickly worked their way back into the contest, first by a driving maul try to Folau Fainga’a – his sixth such try in as many games – while flanker Rob Valetini was on hand to crash over after backing up successive breaks by Kuenzle and winger Tom Wright.

Trailing only 20-17 at the break, the Brumbies might have been expected to run away with the game but an early Harrison goal in the second half looked likely to be the only change to the score until Fines stole proceedings right at the death. Still, by that stage the second half penalties had favoured them 8-2.

Waratahs captain Rob Simons had one of his best games for the Tahs, dominating the lineouts, and making some conspicuous hits deep into the match. So too his locking partner Ned Hanigan also proved very effective.

Two of the main architects of the Brumbies’ positive start, loosehead James Slipper and Lolesio, were forced off with injury. Slipper failed a HIA and did not return while the forlorn way in which Lolesio shook his head indicated that Dave Rennie’s leading contender for the Wallabies five-eighth position could now find himself battling to be fit by the time the time the international season comes around.

It had been Lolesio’s crosskick, taken under advantage, which Harrison had spilled for the opening try of the game but it was a pity that his hamstring injury prevented him from benefiting from the experience of playing under the intense pressure the Tahs brought to this game.

Simmons was left to rue to fact that his side did not handle the pressure moments well. “We let one slip and that’s what happens,” he said.

Still, he struggled to comprehend how his side had lost a game in which they had fairly significant territorial advantage. “We were getting heaps of pay from playing down that end, so that’s what we spoke about. Every time we went down there, they gave away penalties, multiple offsides and we hoped to get some pay from that eventually.”

Yet with the exception of a yellow card to busy winger Andy Muirhead for a professional foul at the breakdown, Gardner never reacted to the string of offside penalties.

“There were probably a handful of moments there that we missed out on and that’s what the winning and losing of tight games comes down to,” Simmons said.

Brumbies skipper Allan Alaalatoa praised his side for getting the job done, even if it had taken them the full 80 minutes. “They put a lot of pressure on our lineout and we only completed a couple so that’s definitely something to work on going forward.”