WELLINGTON // Bad days in Australian rugby got worse when all five of their Super Rugby teams suffered heavy losses in the tournament’s penultimate regular-season round.
After a 3-0 Test series defeat by an England team coached by one of their own, Australian Eddie Jones, Australia now face the prospect that only one of their teams will make the Super Rugby play-offs – and then only because of a forgiving qualifying system.
A black weekend for Australian teams began when the Auckland-based Blues, a team already out of play-off contention, crushed the ACT Brumbies 40-15, delivering a heavy blow to the Brumbies’s hopes of qualifying for the post-season.
Then the Chiefs beat the Queensland Reds 50-5 and the Christchurch-based Crusaders crushed the Melbourne Rebels 85-26, scoring 13 tries.
Later Saturday the Wellington-based Hurricanes beat the New South Wales Waratahs 28-17 in Sydney, defying the Waratahs’s vaunted home-ground record and clinching their own place in the play-offs. Finally, the Cape Town-based Stormers beat the Perth-based Western Force 22-3 to complete a clean sweep of Australian franchises and to raise further questions about the steady decline of Australia’s rugby strength.
See also:
• New Zealand conference intrigue as Canterbury Crusaders put up 85 points
• South Africa's Blue Bulls still in play with thrashing
• South Africa's Stormers close in on conference victory
Next weekend’s final round will determine whether the Waratahs or Brumbies, tied on 39 points, claim the only play-off place still available to an Australian team. The Waratahs face the improving Blues, while the Brumbies play the Force and may have the upper hand in the sudden-death contest for a play-off place.
Whatever happens, the best either team can do is reach 44 points, which would almost certainly make them the lowest-ranked side to reach the play-offs: their 39 points are currently only good enough for seventh place on a combined table.
Australia might be able to turn around its current form in Rugby Championship Test matches later this season, but it seems unlikely. Two factors seem to be primarily responsible for its current decline in both Tests and Super Rugby; the steady trickle of leading players to Europe, which is depleting its depth, and a lack of quality coaches at a Super Rugby level.
The Brumbies’s Stephen Larkham and the Waratahs’s Daryl Gibson are both former international players finding their feet in new head coaching roles. The Rebels, Force and Queensland Reds have all recently experienced a high turnover of coaches. Todd Blackadder, who will leave the Crusaders at the end of this season after eight years in charge, has been linked to the Reds and his arrival might help reverse those trends.
The manner of the defeats of Australian teams in Round 16 will still concern their fans. The Brumbies came to Auckland with the chance to push for a play-off place and instead were overrun by the last-placed team in New Zealand.
Needing a forceful start, they instead conceded four soft tries to trail 28-7 after 20 minutes, a lead mitigated only by a penalty try. The Brumbies are playing a style, heavily dependent on set pieces and rolling mauls, which seems at odds with Larkham’s record as one of Australia’s most-talented backs.
Larkham said his players were still feeling the toll of the England series.
“You can blame a lot of things, but realistically we’ve got to look at ourselves and turn it around,” he said. “That’s the positive we’ll have leaving Auckland, a lesson learnt and we’re not going to let ourselves down with this last week’s preparation.”
The Rebels’s experience at the hands of the Crusaders was even more severe. The Crusaders seemed to score at will, producing their first try after only two minutes – to lock Sam Whitelock in his 100th Super Rugby game – and scoring six more tries before half time, which were followed by another six in the second half.
The Waratahs seemed to have the best chance to turn the tide, in Sydney where they win almost 75 per cent of their games. They were ahead 17-11 early in the second half and seemed in a strong position but the Hurricanes were able to lift their defensive effort and run in 17 unanswered points.
In doing so, the Hurricanes clinched their place in the play-offs, joining compatriots the Chiefs, Crusaders and the defending champions Highlanders, who qualified with a 34-8 win over the Jaguares in Buenos Aires to complete the round.
The Johannesburg-based Lions, who became the first team to reach the play-offs last weekend, consolidated first place with a 57-21 win over compatriots the Kings, while the Stormers sealed a home play-off with their win over the Force.
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Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
How to vote in the UAE
1) Download your ballot https://www.fvap.gov/
2) Take it to the US Embassy
3) Deadline is October 15
4) The embassy will ensure all ballots reach the US in time for the November 3 poll
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
