The Fijian Drua yesterday qualified for the Super Rugby Pacific quarter-finals for the second consecutive year after scoring 21 unanswered points in the second half to beat the Melbourne Rebels 40-19 in the last round of the regular season.
The win clinched seventh place for the Drua on 26 points and kept seven-time defending champions the Canterbury Crusaders (ninth, 24 points) out of the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
The Crusaders temporarily moved up to eighth place after beating Moana Pasifika (11th, 18 points) 43-10 on Friday for their fourth win of the season, but the Drua leap-frogged them and the Rebels (eighth, 26 points) to move into seventh given a better regular-season wins record. They won six regular-season matches to the Rebels’ five.
Photo: AFP
The Rebels enter the playoffs for the first time in their 14-year history.
However, it is a somber achievement after Rugby Australia on Thursday announced that it would not renew the Rebels’ license to play in Super Rugby Pacific next season because of financial instability.
Yesterday’s match was the Rebels last regular-season match in Super Rugby and the club will cease to exist as soon as their playoff run ends.
Photo: AFP
The Rebels led 14-5 after a penalty try and a try to winger Andrew Kellaway in the 12th and 13th minutes. Drua scrumhalf Frank Lomani, returning from a six-week suspension for elbowing a Rebels player when the teams met earlier in the season, kicked the ball out of the back of the Rebels’ scrum as they attempted a pushover try.
He did so from an offside position, receiving a yellow card and conceding a penalty try.
The Drua rallied with a try to Ilaisa Droasese to make the score 14-12 before the Rebels went ahead 19-12 with a try to lock Josh Canham.
Iosefo Masi scored for the Drua to level the score at 19-19 at halftime. The Drua then rocked the Rebels with three quick tries at the start of the second half to build a 40-19 lead.
Selestino Ravutaumada scored the first immediately after the restart, winger Waqa Nalaga scored his second of the match after the opening the scoring in the seventh minute and Lomani atoned with a try in the 52nd minute.
Masi had a giant influence on the match for his ability to break tackles and make meters after the collision, which helped to set up tries for his outside backs.
The Crusaders needed the Rebels to beat or draw with the Drua to progress to the playoffs themselves.
The club issued a statement announcing a review of the season as soon as the match in Fiji ended and with it the Crusaders’ hopes.
“Our review is focused on performance and ensures we don’t make any rash decisions,” the statement from Crusaders chief executive officer Colin Mainsbridge said.
“We want the team and organization to operate to the standard we expect and every opportunity to improve is looked at,” he said.
Later yesterday, the Wellington Hurricanes (56 points) were confirmed as the top qualifiers for the playoffs after the second-placed Blues (55 points) were involved in a dramatic finish to the match in Auckland, where the hosts needed a bonus-point win over the Waikato Chiefs (fourth, 43 points) to claim the top spot.
The Blues were on course to achieve that until Chiefs replacement back Josh Ioane crossed for a try in the final minute, denying the Blues a bonus point in their 31-17 victory.
Blues captain Patrick Tuipulotu felt let down by the outcome after his side dominated the contest, boosted by two tries by in-form loose forward Hoskins Sotutu.
“We can be happy with the win, but our goal was to win with a bonus point,” Tuipulotu said. “Unfortunately we didn’t do that, so that’s very disappointing for us — it’s not enough to just play in patches.”
Earlier, winger Salesi Rayasi crossed for a hat-trick as the Hurricanes brushed past the Otago Highlanders (sixth, 28 points) 41-14 in Wellington.
The quarter-finals schedule among the top eight teams next week has the Hurricanes at home to the Rebels, while the Blues are to host the Drua.
The third-placed ACT Brumbies (third, 52 points) — who beat the Western Force (10th, 20 points) 24-19 in yesterday’s late game — face the Highlanders in Canberra and the Chiefs are to play the Queensland Reds (fifth, 40 points) in Hamilton.
The Reds downed the NSW Waratahs (12th and last, 13 points) 27-26 on Friday.
Additional reporting by AFP and staff writer
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS