The Otago Highlanders thrashed the Waikato Chiefs 36-9 on Saturday to book their place in the Super Rugby playoffs for the second year in a row.
The Highlanders recorded a surprisingly easy win against the highly rated Chiefs, scoring four unanswered tries to secure a vital bonus point at a foggy Rugby Park in Invercargill.
Otago’s win was their 10th of the season, enabling them to leapfrog the Chiefs into second place on the New Zealand conference standings.
They have already wrapped up a wild-card berth with two rounds to go and have a mathematical chance of finishing top of the table.
The Chiefs remain firmly in the hunt for a playoff spot, but their chances of playing a semi-final are fading after they slumped to their fifth loss of the year.
The Highlanders led 11-3 at halftime, after Patrick Osborne scored the only try of the opening 40 minutes, then ran away with it in the second half.
Waisake Naholo added a second try shortly after the restart as the Highlanders started to tighten their grip on the game before finishing with a late flourish.
Richard Buckman dived over out wide for his team’s third try in the final 10 minutes before Ben Smith secured the bonus point two minutes from the end.
In Australia, the Queensland Reds defeated the Western Force 32-10 in Perth, to record just their fourth win of the season.
Flyhalf Quade Cooper made a spectacular return from a shoulder injury, scoring two tries and kicking five goals for a personal haul of 22 points for the Reds.
On Friday, South Africa’s Sharks provided a knockout blow to the Melbourne Rebel’s playoff hopes with a 25-21 victory at King’s Park in Durban.
The Rebels, who played for 52 minutes with 14 men after a red card for prop Laurie Weeks, have 31 points from their 14 matches and with two rounds remaining are now out of the running for a top-six place.
That hope had long disappeared for the Sharks, who have endured a dismal season, but are at least providing a strong finish with back-to-back wins.
The Rebels’ cause was not helped by the sending-off of Weeks on 28 minutes after he became involved in a scuffle with opposite number Jannie du Plessis, landing some punches. The latter got away with a yellow card.
Wings Sibusiso Sithole and Lwazi Mvovo crossed the try line for the Sharks, with replacement center Heimar Williams grabbing their third score.
Flyhalf Lionel Cronje added two penalties and two conversions.
Rebels captain Scott Higginbotham was superb as he crossed for two tries and laid on a third for Bryce Hegarty, but could not claw his side over the line. Flyhalf Jack Debreczeni converted the three tries.
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
Tainan TSG Hawks slugger Steven Moya, who is leading the CPBL in home runs, has withdrawn from this weekend’s All-Star Game after the unexpected death of his wife. Moya’s wife began feeling severely unwell aboard a plane that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday evening. She was rushed to a hospital, but passed away, the Hawks said in a statement yesterday. The franchise is assisting Moya with funeral arrangements and hopes fans who were looking forward to seeing him at the All-Star Game can understand his decision to withdraw. According to Landseed Medical Clinic, whose staff attempted to save Moya’s wife,
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt yesterday backed Nick Champion de Crespigny to be the team’s “roving scavenger” after handing him a shock debut in the opening Test against the British and Irish Lions Test in Brisbane. Hard man Champion de Crespigny, who spent three seasons at French side Castres before moving to the Western Force this year, is to get his chance tomorrow with first-choice blindside flanker Rob Valetini not fully fit. His elevation is an eye-opener, preferred to Tom Hooper, but Schmidt said he had no doubt about his abilities. “I keep an eye on the Top 14 having coached there many years
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after
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