The Queensland Reds scored a try after the fulltime siren to pinch a 38-31 Super Rugby win over New Zealand’s Otago Highlanders in Brisbane yesterday.
The Highlanders had levelled the scores at 31-31 with a try by Japan international Fumiaki Tanaka in the final minute of normal time.
However, the Reds regrouped and scored the clinching try through No. 8 Jake Schatz, following 18 phases, two-and-a-half minutes after the siren.
It was a see-saw match of nine tries, with the Reds leading 21-0 at halftime only for the Highlanders to fight their way back to draw level, crowned by Queensland’s clinching try.
It was a fitting victory for Wallabies scrumhalf Will Genia, who was playing in his 100th match for Queensland and was at the heart of most of the Reds attacks.
Genia provided the kicks which led to tries to Rod Davies and Dom Shipperley in the first half, and gave the final pass for Schatz’s second and winning try after the siren.
Genia was given the final kick to convert Schatz’s try.
The win ended Queensland’s six-match losing run and lifted them off the bottom of the log.
The Highlanders got two points out of the defeat, a losing bonus point and one for scoring four tries to move above Western Force in the top-six positions.
The Reds played some of their best rugby in a troubled season with three converted tries in the opening 34 minutes through Curtis Browning, Davies and Shipperley, with Mike Harris deadly accurate with the conversions.
However, Otago hit back in the second half with tries by Lima Sopoaga, Richard Buckman and Patrick Osborne, with Schatz scoring his first try off a Reds pushover scrum.
Replacement scrumhalf Tan-aka looked to have rescued a draw for the Highlanders when he dived over a ruck for a converted try, only to set up Queensland’s last-gasp winning try.
“It’s good to win again, it’s been a while,” Reds skipper James Horwill said. “We made it hard for ourselves in the second half, but found a way to win in the end.”
CRUSADERS V FORCE
AFP, CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand
The Canterbury Crusaders froze out Super 15 upstarts the Western Force in a 30-7 win yesterday, aided by two late penalty tries.
The seven-time champions rolled over the Force as temperatures dropped to 0?C at their home ground, leaving the Crusaders second in the Super 15 standings behind South Africa’s Coastal Sharks.
The Force, the surprise package in this year’s Super 15, can still make the playoffs for the first time ever, but will most likely need to win two of their final three fixtures.
For Todd Blackadder’s Crusaders, a team bristling with All Blacks, the win puts them in the familiar position of building momentum toward the end of the season.
Unusually, it was two penalty tries in the last 10 minutes which decided the match, after referee Mike Fraser penalized the Force for collapsing a lineout maul, then twisting a scrum after the siren.
The Crusaders had early chances, but could only edge ahead through two Colin Slade penalties as mistakes and solid defending blunted their attack.
Winger Johnny McNicholl made the breakthrough in the 24th minute, swooping onto an Israel Dagg pass to score in the corner after some patient build-up play.
Another Slade penalty made it 16-0 at the break, with the Crusaders claiming 85 percent of territory in the first half.
The Force hit back in the 48th minute when Dane Haylett-Petty spun through three defenders to score between the posts, but it was not enough and the Crusaders held them scoreless for the rest of the match.
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