SUNDAY SPECIAL: A compelling and unsatisfying final

PLUS: Head On winners are announced and Rating the Ratings are back by unpopular demand.

Big Sam goes out a winner. Photosport/ Andrew Cornaga

After a bristling final that did a lot to highlight the best qualities of both sides, it might be inapt to focus on a negative, but there was one five-minute block of this match that summed up for me where rugby is at the moment.

Deep into the second half the Chiefs, having had their lineout disrupted all night by the hulking presences of Sam Whitelock and Scott Barrett, threw long from a midfield set piece. Damian McKenzie, fleet of foot, darted forward to take it on the fly, effectively taking the forwards out of play. After splitting the first line McKenzie fed Emoni Narawa who, being indelicate, embarrassed a backpedalling Richie Mo’unga on the way to the tryline.

It was magical; exactly the sort of out-of-the-box brilliance the sport is capable of producing when teams are coached to express themselves and to look for attacking opportunities.