[2018 Super Rugby] Round 6: Sunwolves vs. Chiefs (24/03/2018)

[TRF_heineken]

Venue: Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium
Time: 06:15 CAT (SA, GMT+2)​

 

[Radsy]

Interested to see the Chiefs lineup. More crappy news with Mitch Brown going down for the year with an ACL. Stevenson had athroscopic and will be out a while. Also, sounds like Dom Bird could be in more trouble than previously thought. Ngatai has started running, but no cutting yet. Hopefully Seu is back, as Allardice does little for me. Injury news is so random and incomplete in Super Rugby.

Larksea, you were right about Messam's performance v the Bulls, I didn't give him enough credit.

Sunwolves gave the Chiefs a good game in Hamilton last year. I don't expect this to be easy. I hope Robbie Robinson gets a shot at his old team.

 

[Brigantine]

The Sunwolves should be gunning for this scalp. I'm hoping they'll announce an array of stars playing in their normal positions.
At a bare minimum there should be either Tamura or Parker at 10, and either Horie or the Georgian at 2.
Next would be either Leitch or Lappies staying at 7, Matsushima staying at 15, and Godzilla at least on the bench.
That's not Jamie Joseph's style though, so I'm not getting my hopes up yet.

[UPDATE: Sunwolves lineup here. Tamura at 10 check, Horie at 2 check, Godzilla at 11 check, but Matsushima moves to 14 and the 7 is Ed Quirk]

Judging by what happened to the ex-Sharks and ex-Lions, Robbie Robinson will probably be on the bench against his old team. [Robinson at 22 check!]

The forecast is for only 16C, so it won't be like that Sunwolves-Blues game last season.

By elimination, players not in the training squad: (and I presume not available for selection)
Ruan Smith (prop), Grant Hattingh (lock), Lappies (openside), Jason Emery (centre), Daishi Murata (centre), Gerhard van den Heever (wing)
All of them mercenaries except Daishi Murata.

[UPDATED:]

• The Japanese star 9 and 10 make their first 2018 start (Tanaka) / appearance (Tamura)
• Japanese star 1 and 2 and Lafaele (seemingly top choice 13) skipped the South Africa tour but are now back
• The star Japanese wings are still strangely absent, but as a back 3 Godzilla/Matsushima/Noguchi is the next best thing. (Yamada missed the SA tour injured)
  
• First Sunwolves start for van Wyk (3) and Noguchi (15), first 2018 cap for Helu (5)
• Michael Little (12, ex North Harbour) goes straight from zero SR caps two weeks ago to 3 starts in 3 games.
  
• The starting 15 has 10 Japanese and 5 mercenaries, the 23 has 15 Japanese and 8 mercenaries
• If Koo (sub 3) comes on for van Wyk (rookie 3) before either of the stars at 2 & 3 come off, (highly likely), the tight 5 (and even blindside) will be all Japanese internationals.

 

[Radsy]

Beautiful Chiefs lineup.

TT starts at 9. Lookout, IMO he could steal the job, at least for a crack in the next couple weeks.

Seu returns to rest up Messam. Ardron at lock! First start for the Canuck!

Great to see Toni Pulu back. Truly underrated.

Once again, eyes out for Bailyn Sullivan. Great speed for his size.

 

[Brigantine]

Sounds like the Chiefs are taking this game as a bit of a trials & training opportunity? (fair enough, there aren't exactly *better* opportunities)

The Sunwolves team is much stronger than usual. (though there is still that gaping hole at 7 - with Lappies injured and Leitch tied up at 6)

This is serious ambush territory - the Sunwolves are really good value at $12!

But on balance, I'll say Chiefs by... 8. I placed a cover bet at +15.5 so a SW loss by 15 or less and I get my money back.

 

[Radsy]

Sounds like the Chiefs are taking this game as a bit of a trials & training opportunity? (fair enough, there aren't exactly *better* opportunities)

The Sunwolves team is much stronger than usual. (though there is still that gaping hole at 7 - with Lappies injured and Leitch tied up at 6)

This is serious ambush territory - the Sunwolves are really good value at $12!

But on balance, I'll say Chiefs by... 8. I placed a cover bet at +15.5 so a SW loss by 15 or less and I get my money back.

That cover bet is smart. The Chiefs rarely play a full 80 minutes.

What happened to Lappies? He looked good v Lions.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Sounds like the Chiefs are taking this game as a bit of a trials & training opportunity? (fair enough, there aren't exactly *better* opportunities)

The Sunwolves team is much stronger than usual. (though there is still that gaping hole at 7 - with Lappies injured and Leitch tied up at 6)

This is serious ambush territory - the Sunwolves are really good value at $12!

But on balance, I'll say Chiefs by... 8. I placed a cover bet at +15.5 so a SW loss by 15 or less and I get my money back.

This is the Sunwolves side I wanted to see. Matsushima has excelled on the wing and even somehow at 13 and Noguchi is meant to be the great young hope isn't he? So I'm happy enough to see the backline reshuffled.

If these guys had been playing together for a couple of weeks I'd also give an upset serious consideration, but it's their first time together this season, so I won't.

 

[Radsy]

They've shuffled the back row- Leitch at 6, Britz at 8, and former Red Quick at openside. They have William Tupou on the bench, which is a poor move, unless he's banged up from his beast performance last week.

 

[Welshdragon2000]

Is Saumaki eligible to play for Japan or has he played for Tonga before? Couldn't find any evidence of him having played for Tonga on google?

 

[Brigantine]

He played Tonga in 7s - but only has 4 caps all from the 2012 Gold Coast tournament. Never in 15s.

Saumaki has expressed that he wants to represent Japan at test level but may need to use the Olympic loophole in order to do so.

 

[Brigantine]

Odds for the Sunwolves have shortened to $8.50.

Forecast is still the same. 15C, only 10% chance of rain, barely any wind. This should be good a good show!

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Reality bites

 

[Brigantine]

If these guys had been playing together for a couple of weeks I'd also give an upset serious consideration, but it's their first time together this season, so I won't.

The Chiefs were good and put the pressure on, but also I think this^ let the Wolves down more than the weakness at 7 I was worried about. The turnover stats were ok but there were so many passes where it looked like the receiver just wasn't expecting it.

I always thought the Sunwolves were good at taking calculated risks to keep the game fast... but it seems to be morphing into plain habitual risk taking - taking a fast lineout and running when it's 2 on 4? How else did you expect that would go?

I see from the stats the Sunwolves lost 4 of their own lineouts... all of them in the first 33' - before Horie got subbed off for Niwai. (48').

What happened to Matsushima? was he injured in the warm-up? The guy that played instead of him - Semisi Masirewa (17 caps for the Force) - is not even in the Sunwolves squad, he just trains with them, and even that was only announced 2 weeks ago (March 7). Weird. By 48' Inagaki, Horie, Noguchi and Tanaka were all taken off, and soon after that Tamura and Leitch too - the game was already lost (10-33) and the top players don't need the extra minutes.

On a positive note, even under all that pressure, the Sunwolves only conceded 6 penalties vs 11 conceded by the Chiefs. They may have poor discipline in terms of risky plays, but in terms of the rules the discipline sounds like it was good.