Watch: Super Rugby Aotearoa – Round 1 results and highlights
Super Rugby Aotearoa: The Forsythe-Barr Stadium was packed with over 20,000 fans as the Highlanders edged a 28-27 thriller against the Chiefs on Saturday.
Elite sport returns with Super Rugby Aotearoa
New Zealand welcomed the return of elite rugby with a phenomenal contest in Dunedin.
Highlanders 28-27 Chiefs
The match would be settled by a Bryn Gatland drop-goal in a fittingly dramatic moment which sunk the Chiefs coached by his father Warren.
The Super Rugby Aotearoa game was played in a festival atmosphere at the Forsyth Barr Stadium just six days after New Zealand declared itself free of the virus and lifted restrictions on mass gatherings.
A Damian McKenzie drop goal put the Chiefs ahead late on, only for Gatland to settle the contest with his long-distance reply from nearly 40 metres.
“I never imagined it would be like that,” Highlanders captain Ash Dixon said.
“It wasn’t perfect but we gutsed it out and playing a quality side like the Chiefs we just kept trying to compete as much as we could and managed to just be on the right side of the ledger at the end.”
AFP
The Highlanders used their enforced break to take stock of what wasn’t working for them in the suspended Super Rugby season.
The South Islanders had only one win from six games compared to the Chiefs’ four when the 15-team, five-nation Super Rugby was suspended in March.
The Highlanders looked sharper despite two yellow cards and problems at the breakdown in the opening game of Super Rugby Aotearoa.
The fast-paced encounter was marred by a high count of 30 penalties, 17 against the Highlanders, with referee Paul Williams putting a special focus on breakdown infringements.
In a see-sawing first half, the Highlanders took an early lead from a Mitch Hunt penalty and after falling behind to a pair of McKenzie penalties, they hit the front again with Hunt converting tries by Ash Dixon and Sio Tomkinson.
The Chiefs, finding space out wide, struck back with a Sean Wainui try and another McKenzie penalty, before Marino Mikaele-Tu’u scored on the stroke of half-time for the Highlanders to turn with a 22-16 advantage while down to 14-men with Vili Koroi in the sin-bin.
After McKenzie and Hunt traded penalties in the third quarter the Chiefs regained the lead with an Anton Lienert-Brown try and McKenzie’s drop goal before Gatland sealed the match.
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