Center Charlie Ngatai scored two first-half tries to lift the Waikato Chiefs to a 35-27 win over the Western Force and to a temporary position atop the table in Super Rugby yesterday.
Ngatai’s double helped the Chiefs to a 23-8 halftime lead, which they extended to 30-8 with a try to winger Tim Nanai-Williams before the Force mounted a stirring comeback with three tries.
The Chiefs’ fourth straight win, achieved with a bonus point from a contentious penalty try, lifted them to the top of the New Zealand conference and the overall table.
The Hurricanes led the tournament by a point from the Chiefs after suffering their first loss of the season last weekend at the hands of defending champions the New South Wales Waratahs.
The Chiefs’ win lifted them to 37 points, four ahead of the Wellington-based Hurricanes, who can reclaim the lead with a win over the struggling Queensland Reds in Brisbane tomorrow in the last match of the 11th round.
The Chiefs seized control of Friday’s match in an outstanding first half in which their forwards splintered the Force defense and created opportunities for two quick tries by Ngatai.
His first in the 19th minute was the best of the match. He wriggled through a tackle and passed infield to All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick, who cracked the defense. Retallick stepped through a tackle and passed to scrumhalf Brad Webber, who quickly fed Ngatai for a try between the posts.
The Force played the last 50 minutes of the match with 14 men after scrumhalf Ian Prior was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle on Nanai-Williams. They still showed exceptional character to surge back into the match with second-half tries to Luke Morahan, Matt Hodgson and Heath Tessman.
The Chiefs were able to stave off their rally with Nanai-Williams’ brilliant solo try in the 66th minute — he shrugged off four tackles to score. The 46th-minute penalty try from a disintegrating scrum was also decisive: The Chiefs were still 10m from the line when the try was awarded and there seemed to be considerable doubt that a try was imminent without the penalty.
At Canberra Stadium, David Pocock scored a hat-trick of tries as the ACT Brumbies snapped a two-match losing streak to beat the Otago Highlanders 31-18, reviving their stuttering campaign.
The Brumbies cemented their position at the head of the Australian conference standings with a bonus-point win.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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