The New South Wales Waratahs yesterday wore down the 14-man Highlanders for a 32-20 win to lift them from seventh to sixth place in Super Rugby Pacific, while the Auckland-based Blues on Saturday clinched first place on the ladder after beating the ACT Brumbies 21-19.
The Waratahs led 19-7 at halftime and held out a brief second half rally from the Highlanders before a late try to flyhalf Tane Edmed closed out their first win in Dunedin in 14 years.
The Waratahs found themselves under pressure in the second half, but made ground with strong one-off running and turning the Highlanders with accurate kicking.
“It was a tight contest,” Waratahs captain Jake Gordon said. “They got the first try, but we wrestled back momentum, played some pretty good footy when we got the ball and executed well when we had our chances.”
In Saturday’s match against the Brumbies, the Blues went behind 19-18 to a Billy Pollard try with only 90 seconds remaining before Beauden Barrett kicked the winning dropped goal after the fulltime siren.
“That was almost test match intensity with the young packs and see-saw nature of the game,” Barrett said. “When you come to Canberra you’re up for a hell of a fight and we certainly got that.”
The Brumbies now have taken the Blues and the Christchurch-based Crusaders close in successive matches, gaining confidence as the playoffs approach.
They were under pressure for most of the second half on Saturday, but held on through determined goal line defense. The Brumbies gave up 12 penalties and lost two players to yellow cards, but still were unbending in their defensive effort.
“We showed so much heart tonight. Our backs were against the wall through the whole game,” captain Allan Alaalatoa said. “We defended our hearts out and I just don’t feel we were getting the rub of the green. But we still managed to be up in the 79th minute.”
The Blues, with a six point lead and only one week remaining in the regular season, cannot be toppled from first place whatever the outcome of their final match against the Waratahs on Saturday.
The eight teams which will contest the playoffs mostly have been found, although the Highlanders still can be dislodged from eighth place, and might need a win over the Melbourne Rebels on Sunday to seal a quarter-final place.
The top eight teams in the 12-team tournament progress to the quarter-finals. The top four teams have home advantage in the first round of the playoffs and the top two teams will play at home as long as they stay in contention.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier