Barry Coughlan
TODD Blackadder is one victory away from becoming the first man to win a Super rugby championship as a player and coach when he guides the travel-weary Canterbury Crusaders into Saturday’s Super 15 final against the Queensland Reds.
The former All Blacks lock captained the Crusaders to three of their seven previous championships in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and can now add his first title as coach two years after succeeding five-time championship-winner Robbie Deans in 2009.
Opposing coach Ewen McKenzie also stands on the brink of history, having taken the Reds from 13th place in 2009 to their first Super rugby final in the professional era. Queensland finished atop the Super 15 standings at the end of the regular season, and have lost only once at home.
Last February, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the Crusaders’ home town of Christchurch, killing 181 people and wrecking thousands of buildings, among them Canterbury’s AMI Stadium. The Crusaders have since been forced to play all of their home matches on the road and have covered more than 60,000 miles on a season-long trek on which they have played matches in both hemispheres.
They have covered more than 15,000 miles in the past week alone as they travelled to South Africa to beat the Cape Town-based Stormers in last weekend’s semi-final and then to Brisbane for the championship decider. Blackadder said his players have weathered that heavy travel schedule and are in good shape for tomorrow’s final.
Queensland state has been battered this year by deadly floods and tropical storms.
“The people of Queensland have had similar adversity to overcome as a result of the January floods and Cyclone Yasi,” McKenzie said. “Queensland is over the worst of it, but there are still a lot of Queenslanders out there battling as the rebuilding goes on.”
The match is enlivened by the respective histories of the rival teams: Canterbury will attempt to win its eighth title in 10 finals appearances while Queensland is playing a final for the first time since the game went professional after 1995.
It also contains an array of compelling individual match-ups, most notably the contest between the world’s best fly-halves: Dan Carter for the Crusaders and Quade Cooper of the Reds. It is possible the outcome will be decided by Cooper’s brilliant ability as a playmaker or Carter’s class and reliability.
Canterbury scrum-half Andy Ellis passed a fitness test Thursday for a shoulder injury and will take his place.
Richie McCaw, who has missed much of the season with a foot injury, will also be available for the Crusaders, and will take on Queenslands’ unheralded Beau Robinson, who started the season in club rugby and without a contract, traveling on his own initiative to Brisbane to seek the role he has filled throughout the season.
Speedsters Sean Maitland and Rod Davies will face off on the wing outside formidable centers Robbie Fruean for Canterbury and Anthony Faingaa for Queensland. Maitland was the tournament’s leading try-scorer through the first half of the season, until he was sidelined with injury, and is the Cooper’s first cousin. Davies, who has also had his injury battles, made a brilliant comeback when he scored three tries in Queensland’s 30-13 semifinal win over the Auckland Blues.
The tight forward battle may be more one-sided. Canterbury has an all-All Blacks tight five which includes veteran lock and former Brisbane Broncos rugby league star Brad Thorn. The scrum may be one area in which Canterbury can count on certain superiority, though scrums are not always influential in the modern game.
McKenzie indicated that while Queensland respected the Crusaders, their outstanding record in the southern hemisphere championship and their achievements in this troubled season, they don’t fear them.
“They’re the benchmark side,” he said. “That’s why we played two pre-season trials against them. I agree this has been a difficult season for them, but I think there has been a side-benefit to all their travelling. The fact they’ve been away from their families for most of the season means they have become family to each other.”
Blackadder also paid tribute to the Reds, saying Canterbury would need its best defensive performance of the season to win the final.
“Defensively, we have to be on top of our game,” he said. “I thought we lifted a gear and took it to a new level (in the semifinal) and we’re going to have to be even better again.
“The Reds pose different threats. They’ve got Genia running round the sides of the rucks with the forwards and they can roll out the back to Cooper. When they get on the front foot, they have a lot of threats. We have to be defensively sound.”
A capacity Brisbane crowd of 52,500 would break Australian rugby’s attendance record of 49,327 for a provincial team’s match, set in 1907 when New South Wales played the All Blacks at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
When: Tomorrow, 7.40pm (10.40 am Irish time, Sky Sports)
Where: Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Referee: Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)
Head-to-Head: Played 17, Crusaders 12, Reds 5
In Brisbane: Played 10, Crusaders 6, Reds 4
2011 meeting: Round 15, May 29: Reds beat Crusaders 17-16 at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/POyjoILTA-I/post.aspx
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