Stan Sport executive producer and commentator Andrew Swain made his debut on the Aus Rugby Scene podcast this week with a Super Rugby Pacific outlook that should at the very least raise heart rates north of the Tasman: a feasible scenario, he argues, in which three Australian teams make the finals.
Swain, who has spent the back half of the season with a heavier commentary load after Sean Maloney lost his voice on a drive back from Canberra, used the show to walk through the run-home in detail. The headline forecast was unambiguous.
"There is a really feasible world where you get three Aussie teams into the finals," Swain told host Brett McKay. "It's definitely taking liberties — the Reds have to beat the Chiefs this week if they're a chance of finishing that third spot. The Force-Reds game in a couple of weeks in Perth is going to be huge. But there's a really possible world where you get three teams in the final. That's being very, very Aussie optimistic."
The Force, in particular, Swain singled out as the form Australian team. He raised a glass to the Western Force defence after a stunning effort against the Waratahs the previous Friday night, in which they kept the Tahs out of their own attacking 22 from five minutes before half-time until the 75th minute.
"Forty minutes they held a team out of their own 22. It's incredible," Swain said. "I was producing this game. We were sitting in the truck and Sean was calling it and he kept buttoning on and saying, 'Can you just remind me when the last time they went into the 22 was?' And I had to keep saying, 'Mate, they still haven't gone in.'"
The Force's run home, he argued, makes them a genuine threat for sixth and beyond.
"On their current form — and I've been saying this for a couple of weeks now — they are the form Australian team right now," Swain said. "They've actually got a decent run home. So once they get past this game in Canberra this weekend, they've got three games in Perth to come. They'll be eyeing off these four games, and we can win three if not all four of those, which means they can make a run."
The news for the Brumbies was less rosy. Swain noted the once-clear top-three side has lost six of its last eight, and pointed to a possible reason that has nothing to do with their high-profile recent absences.
"Look at — the Brumbies have really hit the skids the last couple of weeks," he said. "Momentum, probably a reset's what they need. I liked Morgan Turinui's point on Between Two Posts that now might actually be the time where they're missing [Michael] Hooper, because everyone's been saying, 'Are they missing [Charlie] Cale?' I don't know. I don't think it's all just Charlie Cale, because since Charlie Cale's been out, Nick Frost has come back, Allan Alaalatoa has come back, Tom Wright's come back. So I reckon you're offsetting the loss of Cale. But Hooper — that might actually be a decent point now."
The Reds, meanwhile, have flipped the conversation. Swain wrote a column five weeks ago asking whether anyone needed to talk about the Queensland Reds. He now argues the inverse.
"Five weeks ago I wrote a column saying, 'Do we need to talk about the Queensland Reds?' And now I've had to turn around and go, if we were wondering about the Queensland Reds, we definitely need to talk about the Brumbies," Swain said. "That's exactly five weeks apart. Isn't that funny? And that's the nature of Super Rugby."
At the top of the table, the Hurricanes and Chiefs look likely to lock down the top two within the next fortnight. The Blues, despite a tough run-in including the Crusaders on Friday night, can almost lock up a top-three spot with a win, while the Reds, Brumbies and Crusaders are jammed inside two points, with the Force, Highlanders and Waratahs all alive for sixth.
Swain reserved his most emotional segment of the show for a club rugby moment in Brisbane: Connor Wheelan, a young man with severe autism, playing his 100th game for the University of Queensland Rugby Club's sixth-grade side, against Brothers — Swain's own boyhood club.
"He played his 100th game during the week. It's just such a wonderful advertisement for what club rugby and the game of rugby can do for people," Swain said. "All the clubs in Brisbane just universally said, 'Absolutely yes, we'll do this.' He plays in a different colour jersey, everyone knows not to go full on in the contact with him, he loves it, everyone on the sideline loves him playing, and it's just so cool to see."
The immediate diary, though, is unforgiving. Reds-Chiefs Friday night will set the table for the entire weekend. Brumbies-Force on Saturday night may turn on the half-back battle between Ryan Lonergan and the much-improved Henry Robertson. And the Highlanders-Waratahs match in Dunedin sits as a must-not-lose for both sides chasing sixth.
"I haven't been this excited for a weekend for a while," Swain said.
South of the equator, he is not alone.
