James O’Connor yesterday snatched a try after the buzzer against the ACT Brumbies as the Queensland Reds toppled the defending champions 19-16 in a frantic finish to the Super Rugby AU final.
Brad Thorn’s men have been the standout team this year, winning seven of eight games ahead of the decider, and they did not disappoint a 42,000-strong crowd in a pulsating finish at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
They went to the break 13-6 down, but came back in emphatic fashion, with O’Connor crossing in the 84th minute then converting after a sustained period of pressure with two Brumbies players yellow-carded in the final few minutes.
Photo: AFP
It was only their second Super Rugby title.
Their first came in 2011, when the competition also featured top teams from New Zealand and South Africa.
“It was a tough contest, it always is against the Brumbies. That was like a Test match,” said skipper O’Connor, who scored all of his side’s 19 points.
“Super proud of my boys, they came home strong. We started a little bit slow, but we got there,” he said.
It was the third match in a row against the Brumbies in which they had been down at halftime and rallied to win.
“I want to congratulate the Reds, not only on tonight, but a great season,” said Brumbies captain Allan Alaalatoa, whose side made the final after six wins from eight this season. “I said to my boys: ‘You’ve got to be proud of that effort.’”
The Reds narrowly lost last year’s final to the Brumbies 28-23 and admitted before the game that they were still smarting.
However, it was all the Canberra team in the first half.
O’Connor nailed an early penalty to get the scoreboard ticking over in a fast and furious opening 10 minutes that the visitors dominated.
Their pressure paid off when Tom Banks crossed for the opening try after a deft offload from Noah Lolesio, who converted to put them 7-3 in front.
The Brumbies had all the possession and territory, but against the run of play O’Connor’s boot pulled the Reds back to within a point.
The mini comeback did not last, with two more Lolesio penalties stretching the Brumbies advantage at halftime.
Winger Jordan Petaia was unfortunate to have a try disallowed soon after the restart as the Reds started fast.
O’Connor bagged a third penalty to keep them in touch and then a fourth to take them within a point at 12-13 with 16 minutes remaining.
A composed Lolesio eased the pressure with his third successful penalty to restore a four-point advantage going into the final 10 minutes, before the two yellow cards for the Brumbies and the heartbreak after the siren.
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