Welcome to this week’s edition of The Tip-On!
If you want to watch some exciting action on a dry track at Eden Park, you can catch up on what happened in the final of the NZ Barbarians U85 Club Cup — a new weight-restricted men’s competition launched by New Zealand Rugby earlier this year — here.
All in-game data per ESPNScrum unless otherwise stated.
Fringe threats
With TJ Perenara set to be in Japan and Jamie Booth suffering a serious injury a few weeks ago, the Hurricanes are looking rather light at halfback next year. Indeed, Stuff recently confirmed that Counties Manukau's Jonathan Taumateine is the only fit halfback on the franchise's books for 2021.
As Mark Geenty noted in that piece, Wellington's Kemara Hauiti-Parapara will likely be one of the first options Jason Holland looks at in the position; he has previous experience in the Hurricanes’ team environment, having come off the bench in the 31-31 draw with the British & Irish Lions back in 2017.
Hauiti-Parapara — who was part of the title-winning New Zealand U20 side of 2017 — has had a largely error-free season for his province in this year's Mitre 10 Cup, turning the ball over only once so far on 303 total touches. (For comparison, the average halfback in the competition has turned the ball over once every 63.3 touches.)
However, he has not offered much of a varied threat for Leo Crowley from the scrum-half position — something that Holland will have to bear in mind when trying to replace Perenara and Booth, who are both excellent ball-runners.
The Wellington 9 — a former representative softball player — has passed the ball 40.9 times for every carry he's completed this year, comfortably the lowest rate among the 21 halfbacks with more than 200 total touches in the NPC in 2020.
(This hasn't always been a characteristic of his game: his 9.4 passes per carry in U20 internationals is a middle-of-the-road figure for Baby Blacks 9s since 2016. It doesn't appear to be a tactical thing either: Connor Collins, Wellington's other featured halfback this year, has carried once every 15.8 passes.)
At the other end of the spectrum by this measure are Waikato’s dynamic young duo, Xavier Roe and Cortez Ratima. The pair have been comfortably the most active running halfbacks in the competition so far, both completing fewer than 9 passes for every carry they make:
Roe in particular — back in Hamilton after a couple of years at Taranaki — has got a lot of good press so far this season: Geenty's piece referenced above noted that he's already been signed by the Chiefs for next year; Tom Vinicombe highlighted his impressive performance when he lined up opposite Perenara early in the competition; and Paul Cully recently name-dropped him as potentially “Aaron Smith's long-term replacement”.
(In the Mooloos’ loss to Bay of Plenty last weekend, he also added another silly bit of skill to his 2020 highlight reel.)
However, Ratima's performance shouldn’t go unnoticed either. The Otorohanga player doesn't turn 20 until next March, but already has 2 seasons of Premier A rugby in the province under his belt and has also marked himself out as a dangerous runner with ball in hand.
His sharp footwork is something to look out for: he has beaten a defender once every 2.0 carries this season, second among that group of NPC scrum-halves with more than 200 touches this year. (He's also turned the ball over less frequently than his provincial teammate, conceding one every 92.3 touches to Roe's rate of one every 53.8.)
With All Blacks Brad Weber and Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi both still under contract, the Chiefs were already stacked at scrum-half even before the signing of Roe. While last year’s third choice Lisati Milo-Harris appears to be off-contract, the franchise also had Bay of Plenty’s age-grade international Leroy Carter involved for an extended period last season — and current Hamilton BHS 9 Noah Hotham is an extremely promising prospect coming up through their development system.
The franchise is therefore unlikely to have immediate room for Ratima (who was part of their U20 programme this year) as well as his provincial teammate Roe, and things might get even more crowded at the position in years to come.
By contrast, the picture in Wellington is much simpler. While in Moape Rokosuka and Treyah Kingi-Taukamo the franchise has two well-regarded young scrum-halves among their their current U18 crop, there is as yet no clear long-term successor to Perenara waiting in the wings; in addition to Hauiti-Parapara, the other 9s involved in the Hurricanes’ wider training group this year were Hawke’s Bay’s Connor McLeod, Southland’s Logan Crowley and local club player Isaac Bracewell.
While Ratima is still at an early stage of his career and may be happy to bide his time at the Chiefs, as Jason Holland looks on with multiple halfback slots to fill he would be remiss not to do his due diligence on the Waikato player.
Man down
In Brisbane on Saturday, the All Blacks were able to see out the period of 14-v-15 play they had to endure between Ofa Tu’ungafasi and Lachlan Swinton’s red cards without taking on any scoreboard damage — but Scott Barrett’s extremely avoidable late yellow cost them dearly.
The Wallabies used the ensuing 10 minutes at 14-v-13 to move from 1 point behind New Zealand to 9 points ahead, and held on to eke out a 24-22 victory at Suncorp Stadium.
The All Blacks’ sequence of red cards since their 2015 World Cup victory is more likely to stick in fans’ memories — Tu’ungafasi’s last weekend followed Sonny Bill Williams’ in the 2017 Lions Series and Scott Barrett’s in Perth in 2019 — but a constant diet of yellow cards over this period has been more consistently costly.
Only Australia have been forced to endure 10-minute spells down a man more frequently than New Zealand since 2016, while the All Blacks’ opponents have themselves been remarkably well-disciplined:
Invisible women
In another great piece in her series on the development of New Zealand’s sportswomen, Ashley Stanley of LockerRoom spoke to a number of academics collecting performance and injury data on women athletes.
Kimberly Santabarbara, Dr Stacy Sims and Kaushik Talukdar all face a similar issue in their respective fields: a lack of robust, historical research into biologically female athletes, who make up the majority of sportswomen.
As Sims — who is currently working with World Rugby on “[t]he largest ever women-specific rugby injury research project” — explained to Stanley, this gender data gap has real consequences for athletes’ health and wellbeing. The issue is particularly clear in research into one of the most important problems rugby is currently trying to address:
Just how far behind the curve the women’s game is on this problem was brought home by a collision in Manawatū’s Farah Palmer Cup semi-final loss to Waikato last month. The clash of heads — which saw Cyclones star Carys Dallinger removed from the field, but her teammate Lucy Brown remain — prompted Stuff’s Aaron Goile to investigate the unavailability of HIA protocols in the competition further.
His findings? That “the Farah Palmer Cup does not meet World Rugby’s mandatory player welfare standards in order for the world governing body to approve the rule for the competition”.
This is another problem which increasing infrastructural spending in the women’s game would go a long way in addressing. As Goile noted, in order to meet World Rugby’s requirements in this area all games would need to be recorded on video to an appropriate standard, matchday medical staff would need to be filled out and pre-season testing would need to be performed on each player in order to establish a cognitive baseline for the HIA itself.
There are many ways in which paying more attention and providing more investment to the women’s game would benefit us all as consumers. First and foremost, however, it should be ensured that the players are not putting themselves in more danger than men simply by electing to follow their passion for the sport as far as it takes them.
Unintended consequences
There would be a clear financial benefit (in the form of reduced travel expenditure) to NZR were they to convert the Mitre 10 Cup into a competition with two geography-based pools, as was reported by Stuff this week. However, the union should be wary of the impact the change could have on the competition as a spectacle for fans.
The Farah Palmer Cup underwent this change in 2020, and the impact on competitiveness was stark. The median winning margin in the tournament in 2019 — played under the traditional Premiership-Championship model — was 15.5 points; under the North-South model this season with no crossover fixtures, that figure rose to 35 points.
It is true that the gap between top and bottom of the men’s provincial competition likely isn’t quite as wide as the women’s; it was also reported that some crossover fixtures would still be retained in the Mitre 10 Cup after such a change.
However, even taking these mitigating factors into consideration, it is certainly possible that such a decision — taken for understandable operational reasons in the short term — may actually have negative consequences for the commercial viability of the overall competition further down the line.
Pass of the week
Another impressive young Waikato half-back was in action at the weekend, with 24-year-old Ariana Bayler coming off the bench for the Probables in relief of Arihiana Marino-Tauhinu during the Black Ferns trial on Saturday.
Her team weren’t able to take away the win, but Bayler played an instrumental part in the try that evened up the scoreboard early in the second half.
The Probables were applying pressure deep inside the Possibles’ 22 when Ruahei Demant — making a dart for the line on a tight angle off 9 — was driven backwards by some strong defence. Sensing the need to settle things down and reassert control, Bayler opts not to immediately play another phase around the corner herself; instead, she beckons to her forwards to pick and drive for a couple of phases.
Within two phases — aided by some excellent a latch work, a feature of the game — the team in black have regained lost ground and find themselves playing under penalty advantage.
Having scanned for space on the blindside on the preceding phase, Bayler sniffs an opportunity to strike following a strong drive from Kaipo Olsen-Baker: she goes digging for the ball, removes it from the clutches of the jackalling Kendra Reynolds and scoots to the left of the breakdown.
The threat of her run from the base of the ruck is enough to interest ‘B’ defender Olivia Ward-Duin, leaving a gap for replacement first five Patricia Maliepo to attack after receiving Bayler’s pass:
The North Harbour prop opts to try and shut down the play at source and prevent the ball being moved to width, where the Probables have an overlap. However, Bayler’s service is too quick for Ward-Duin, and an accurate pass allows the teenage Auckland playmaker to cut back and finish in the vacated space.
Loose threads
In case you missed it on Twitter this week
Outside back Chay Fihaki showing off a range of skills for Canterbury
Young tighthead prop Tamaiti Williams continuing to display his mobility in the open field — and ability at the defensive breakdown
Black Ferns scrum-half Kendra Cocksedge mimicking her All Blacks counterpart Aaron Smith with a brilliant kicked try assist at North Harbour Stadium
Quick hits
After the Possibles v Probables game on Saturday, the Black Ferns selectors revealed their squad for the team’s two non-test fixtures of 2020 — and the NZ Barbarians coaching staff revealed the players who will be opposing them over the next couple of weekends. Uncapped loose forward Ilisapeti Molia is one to look out for in the Black Ferns pack, while exciting young backs Amy du Plessis, Renee Holmes and Grace Steinmetz have also been named for the first time; du Plessis should make her debut off the bench on Saturday. The Barbarians matchday squad includes a pair of dynamic young playmakers — Carys Dallinger and Patricia Maliepo — at 10 and 15, and Canterbury’s impressive Canadian international Cindy Nelles in the second row.
All Blacks Sevens coach Clark Laidlaw provided some more insight into Caleb Clarke’s development under his watch in an interview with Tom Vinicombe for The XV:
In a wide-ranging interview with the NZ Herald’s Liam Napier, NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson again referenced the union’s plan to use next year’s Rugby World Cup as a springboard for elite women’s rugby in the country — although, again, his comments were rather light on detail:
After a rain-affected opening weekend, this year’s edition of the WBBL is well underway in Australia. On Tuesday, Adam Burnett of cricket.com.au penned a great piece with two of the Sydney Thunder’s youngsters — Hannah Darlington and Anika Learoyd — on the early stages of their careers and their Indigenous heritage.
Finally, Nick Bishop’s piece following Australia’s win on Saturday is required reading as ever, with the analyst noting in particular how “[t]he Wallaby resurgence started at the scrum”.