The Auckland Blues, buoyed by the injection of All Blacks Ma’a Nonu and Jerome Kaino, returned to the top half of the Super XV table when they downed the Otago Highlanders 30-12 yesterday.
The revenge win, after losing to the Highlanders 29-21 in the first round, gave the Blues a third victory from six outings and importantly their fifth bonus point of the season, while the southerners have just two wins from five matches.
Nonu and Kaino, making their first starts of the season, had a big impact on settling a Blues side that has played an inconsistent brand of rugby so far this season.
Photo: AFP
The Highlanders had opportunities and briefly led 9-7 in the first half, but in the end suffered from repeated mistakes, putting themselves under pressure against a Kaino-led Blues side intent on exploiting any turnover.
The Blues scored three tries, while the Highlanders were forced to live off four penalties by Lima Sopoaga.
It was a marked improvement in defense for the Blues, who went into the match with one of the worst records in the competition, leaking on average 32 points a game, but they had only themselves to blame for an inability to pick up a four-try bonus point as the match degenerated into a messy display in a scoreless final 20 minutes.
The Highlanders’ best try-scoring movement came in the opening minutes with a break down the right flank that ended 5m from the line when Ben Smith’s final pass hit winger Richard Buckman in the face.
It typified the errors that filled the Highlanders game, while the Blues immediately bounced back with a fortuitous try to George Moala at the other end of the field.
Scrumhalf Bryn Hall, promoted to the starting lineup following news during the week that 71-Test veteran Piri Weepu had suffered a stroke, had a kick charged down, but the ball ricocheted into the arms of Moala, who raced 30m to score.
However, the playmaking was primarily with the Highlanders in the first quarter and while they could not cross the Blues’ line, they benefited from three Sopoaga penalties to hit the front 9-7.
However, they led for only two minutes before prodigious Blues kicker Simon Hickey landed his first penalty and converted the Blues second try to Nonu for the home side to turn with a 17-9 lead at halftime.
In a flurry of scoring in the opening 17 minutes of the second half, Hickey and Sopoaga traded penalties, before Charles Piutau scored the Blues’ third try when the Highlanders failed to find touch with a clearing kick from their own line.
Hickey, who finished the match with 15 points, landed the conversion and a third penalty to put the result beyond doubt.
REDS 22, STORMERS 17
AFP, BRISBANE, Australia
Wallaby flyhalf Quade Cooper kicked the Queensland Reds to a slogging victory over South Africa’s Western Stormers in Brisbane, Australia, yesterday.
The Stormers scored two tries to one, but it was Cooper’s 17 points from a conversion, four penalties and a drop-goal that got the Reds home.
Queensland were desperate to return to winning ways after losing both their two games in South Africa, while the Stormers return to Cape Town losing all four of their Australasian tour games.
It was a stop-start match, with too much kicking for any attacking momentum to be generated and the Reds benefited from Stormers’ mistakes for Cooper to cash in with his penalty goals.
“The Stormers are a very physical side, they pride themselves on their defense and their contact work, so we knew it was going to be physical,” Reds skipper Horwill said.
Shohei Ohtani and his wife arrived in South Korea with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates yesterday ahead of their season-opening games with the San Diego Padres next week. Ohtani, wearing a black training suit and a cap backwards, was the first Dodgers player who showed up at the arrival gate of Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, walked several steps behind him. As a crowd of fans, many wearing Dodgers jerseys, shouted his name and cheered slogans, Ohtani briefly waved his hand, but did not say anything before he entered a limousine bus with his wife. Fans held placards
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals at the All England Open, beating Kim Ga-eun of South Korea 21-17, 21-15. With the win, Tai earned a semi-final against China’s He Bingjiao, who beat Michelle Li of Canada 21-9, 21-9. Defending champion An Se-young defeated India’s P.V. Sindhu 21-19, 21-11. An on Wednesday cruised into the second round, unlike last year’s men’s winner, Li Shifeng, who suffered a shock defeat. South Korea’s An, the world No. 1, overcame Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi 21-17, 21-16 to set up the match against Sindhu. In other women’s singles matches, Taiwan’s Sung Shuo-yun lost 21-18, 24-22 against Carolina Marin of
EYEING TOP SPOT: A victory in today’s final against Storm Hunter and Katerina Siniakova would return 38-year-old Hsieh Su-wei to the world No. 1 ranking Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens on Thursday secured a spot in the women’s doubles finals at the BNP Paribas Open after dispatching Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) at Indian Wells. Hsieh and her Belgian partner Mertens, who won the Australian Open in late January, coasted through the first set after breaking their opponents’ serve twice, but found the going tougher in the second. Both pairs could only muster one break point over 12 games, neither of which were converted, leaving the set to be decided by a tiebreaker. Hsieh and Mertens took a 6-3 lead,
DOUBLES PAYBACK: Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Martens avenged their defeat in the quarters at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open against Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium dispatched Demi Schuurs and Luisa Stefani 6-1, 6-4 to set up a clash against Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US and Australia’s Ellen Perez for a spot in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament. Hsieh and Martens made a blistering start to their rematch after they lost to Schuurs and Stefani in the quarter-finals at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open last month, winning three games without reply at the start of the first set