Ben Lam yesterday bagged a hat-trick as the Wellington Hurricanes downed the Golden Lions 28-19 in Super Rugby while the Auckland Blues upset the New South Wales Waratahs 24-21 to maintain New Zealand’s dominance over Australia.
The Hurricanes’ victory put them two points behind the Canterbury Crusaders in the New Zealand conference, but with a game in hand, while the Lions suffered their fifth loss, but remain top of the South African division.
The Blues remain the bottom New Zealand side, and even though they were outscored by the top Australian team three tries to two, they cashed in on penalties to give Kiwi sides their 38th consecutive win over their trans-Tasman rivals.
Photo: AFP
Lam, the leading try-scorer in the competition and seen by many in New Zealand as an All Black-in-waiting, was a central figure in the Hurricanes’ win as he lifted his total of tries for the year to 12.
With his mix of pace and power, Lam is seen by the Hurricanes as a special weapon.
“He’s on fire. He’s playing really good football,” captain Brad Shields said.
Coach Chris Boyd believes Lam can only get better.
“He’s starting to realize the potential he’s got. He’s big and fast. He’s doing a good job for us, but at the end of a good back line,” Boyd said.
The Hurricanes have been smarting since the semi-finals last year, when they surrendered a 19-point lead to lose to the Lions 44-29.
They were determined to exact revenge, and when they again took an early lead it was one which they would not surrender in a game that never reached great heights, in part because of a strong, swirling wind in the stadium.
Tries to Lam and Ardie Savea had the Hurricanes ahead 14-7 at halftime, with scrumhalf Nic Groom scoring for the Lions just before the break.
Savea’s try came from a stolen line-out, as the Lions struggled with their throw after influential hooker Malcom Marx limped off the field early with a hamstring strain.
Lam scored twice more in the second half, with Beauden Barrett converting all four Hurricanes tries as they forged their way to a 28-7 lead before the Lions staged a late comeback with tries to industrious flanker Marnus Schoeman and replacement wing Sylvian Mahuza.
The Blues win was only their third of the season, while the Waratahs have now lost three of nine.
The Waratahs wanted to play at pace, but turnovers proved costly as the Blues cashed in on the errors to lead 18-14 at halftime.
In the second half, the Waratahs tightened their game, only to be confronted by an uncompromising Blues defensive wall.
“It was a massive effort from the boys. It’s massive for us,” captain Augustine Pulu said.
“We needed our big players to step up and have those big plays in those crucial moments,” he added.
A disappointed Waratahs captain Michael Hooper believed his side had only themselves to blame.
“We created a lot of opportunity and then blew it. We were getting into their 22 easily,” he said.
Playing on Brookvale Oval, the home ground of the Manly Warringah rugby league side, the Waratahs had powerful ball-winning weapons in the form of Michael Wells, Michael Hooper and Will Miller.
However, the Blues played smarter, favoring an attack through the middle while the Sydneysiders shaped to play wide.
For the Blues, Rieko Ioane and Tumua Manu scored tries, with Stephen Perofeta landing a conversion and four penalties.
The Waratahs’ tries came from Damien Fitzpatrick, Sekope Kepu and Hooper, with Bernard Foley converting all three.
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