Super 14 wrap
2006-05-07 14:50
Cape Town - The penultimate week of league matches in the Super 14 competition produced some unexpected results.
Three of the Australian teams went down to New Zealand sides, but the fourth, who have been languishing at the bottom of the log, the Western Force, recorded their first win against South Africa's Cheetahs.
The Bulls were solidly beaten by the Crusaders on Friday night, thereby yielding their possible honours in the competition.
The Crusaders had two pretty ordinary games (by their standards) and realised they could not let things slip any further.
And as was forecast after their loss to the Stormers a week ago, the Bulls paid heavily for the Stormers' success.
In what was supposed to be the main feature for the supporters of South African teams, the Sharks and the Stormers dished up some pretty foolish rugby.
It was clear that the Stormers had not set their aim at playing constructive rugby in trying to beat the Sharks away from home. Joe van Niekerk succeeded in getting a yellow card and that alone cost the Stormers 14 points by way of two converted tries. And even after that the niggling did not end. In the end the Stormers lost 17-24.
The Cats were apparently jolted by the success of the Western Force and obviously did not envisage ending the season at the very bottom of the log.
The Blues had obviously thrown in the towel before the game and the likes of Doug Howlett, Joe Rokocoko and Luke McAllister could not prevent their team being down by 0-20 after the first 20 minutes.
However, the Blues turned up the pace a bit, but a hat-trick by Jaque Fourie enabled the Cats to put a big enough difference between the scores to enable them to win by 1 point.
The results: Hurricanes 26, Reds 22; Bulls 17, Crusaders 35; Chiefs 37, Waratahs 33; Brumbies 26, Highlanders 28; Cheetahs 14, Western Force 16; Sharks 24. Stormers 17; Cats 34, Blues 33.