{"id":12421,"date":"2012-07-15T00:44:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T22:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/rugby-pressure-evident-in-super-rugby-as-playoffs-loom\/"},"modified":"2012-07-15T00:44:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-14T22:44:56","slug":"rugby-pressure-evident-in-super-rugby-as-playoffs-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-pressure-evident-in-super-rugby-as-playoffs-loom\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Pressure evident in Super Rugby as playoffs loom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Greg Stutchbury<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">WELLINGTON, July 15<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Two of the Super Rugby title<br \/>\nfavourites revealed the pressure of the looming playoffs by<br \/>\nlurching to victories over lower-ranked sides they should have<br \/>\ndestroyed in the final round of matches on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Stormers and Canterbury Crusaders struggled to keep<br \/>\ntheir feet on the throats of the Melbourne Rebels and Western<br \/>\nForce. Both were forced to withstand second-half fightbacks<br \/>\nbefore finally achieving their wins.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Stormers&#8217; victory and Waikato Chiefs loss to the<br \/>\nWellington Hurricanes ensured they topped the table, and while<br \/>\nthey failed to excite the crowds &#8212; managing just two bonus<br \/>\npoints all season &#8212; they showed how to win games by taking<br \/>\ntheir opportunities and stifling their opposition.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In playoffs it&#8217;s about winning and playing the percentages<br \/>\nand for the entire season it has always been about winning for<br \/>\nus,&#8221; Stormers coach Allister Coetzee said. &#8220;We are comfortable<br \/>\nwith the way we play and wont make changes now.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t need bonus points in the semi-finals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Stormers and Chiefs both have a bye in the first round<br \/>\nof playoffs next week, with the New Zealand side suffering a<br \/>\ncase of the yips in their final two weeks. They lost a match of<br \/>\ntest intensity to the Crusaders in the penultimate round before<br \/>\nsuccumbingto the Hurricanes on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chiefs coach Dave Rennie managed to at least crack a smile<br \/>\nat the post-match media conference in Wellington, but he was<br \/>\nfrustrated at the way his side had finished after leading the<br \/>\ncompetition for much of the season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs would need to work on their option-taking in<br \/>\nattack after blowing &#8220;six or seven&#8221; potential tries against the<br \/>\nHurricanes and try to be less predictable when they did have the<br \/>\nball, Rennie said.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Greg Stutchbury WELLINGTON, July 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Two of the Super Rugby title favourites revealed the pressure of the looming playoffs by lurching to victories over lower-ranked sides they should have destroyed in the final round of matches on Saturday. The Stormers and Canterbury Crusaders struggled to keep their feet on the throats of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}