Aaron Smith, right, celebrates after Patrick Osborne's try for the Otago Highlanders in their Super Rugby semi-final win over the NSW Waratahs on Saturday. David Gray / Reuters / June 27, 2015
Aaron Smith, right, celebrates after Patrick Osborne's try for the Otago Highlanders in their Super Rugby semi-final win over the NSW Waratahs on Saturday. David Gray / Reuters / June 27, 2015

Ugly ducklings of New Zealand rugby, Wellington Hurricanes and Otago Highlanders, now in spotlight



The Wellington Hurricanes and Otago Highlanders have become the ugly duckling stories of New Zealand rugby after defying their critics to reach the Super Rugby final.

The only New Zealand sides never to have won the Super Rugby crown started this season as two of the most unfancied outfits.

But they emerged from the regular season as the top two performers and then comprehensively downed the ACT Brumbies and NSW Waratahs in the semi-finals on Saturday.

The Hurricanes and Highlanders both specialised in positive, attacking rugby with impressive averages of nearly four tries and 30 points per game.

The pace-setting Hurricanes, whose only previous final appearance was a loss to the Canterbury Crusaders in 2006, won the right to host the final when they beat the two-time champions Brumbies 29-9 in Wellington.

In Sydney, the Highlanders crushed the Wallaby-laden Waratahs 35-17 to book a final berth for the first time since their lone 1999 appearance when they were also beaten by the Crusaders.

The Hurricanes-Highlanders showdown ensures the southern hemisphere championship will have a first-time titleholder, and for the fifth time in the 20-year history of the tournament it will be an all-New Zealand affair.

It was far from faultless rugby by the Hurricanes but with a backline including All Blacks Ma’a Nonu, Conrad Smith, Julian Savea and rising new star Nehe Milner-Skudder, coach Chris Boyd said it was worth taking risks.

“If you play a high risk and reward game you’ve got to expect you will make mistakes,” he said, promising the same approach in the final.

“I don’t suspect we’ll change anything actually. We are just happy that we can go to the last dance and we do it in our own hall.”

The only issues facing the Hurricanes are the fitness of bruising flanker Ardie Savea, who was forced from the field with a knee injury after 50 minutes and ongoing hamstring problems which limited Milner-Skudder to the first half.

Fly-half Beauden Barrett gave up the kicking duties in the second half because of hip pain which he said had hampered him for years.

Fuelled by the emotion of losing former teammate Jerry Collins in a car accident three weeks ago, and with the packed stadium chanting “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry”, the Hurricanes had control of the Brumbies after five minutes.

They scored four tries, two in each half while restricting the Brumbies to a trio of penalties.

For Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph, the post-match debrief after the Waratahs clash had the familiarity of a well-worn record. How could a team with three All Blacks romp home against the defending champions who fielded 13 interntionals?

“You can’t say the same story every week,” he said.

“It still surprises me. In many ways it seems that we’ve fooled the rugby community, they still don’t quite believe in us, what else can these guys do?”

One of the Highlanders’ biggest assets has been fitness, making them one of the best finishing sides in the competition.

When they trailed the Waratahs 17-15 after 50 minutes, they stepped up several gears to score 20 unanswered points.

Their cause was helped by a contentious penalty try when Jacques Potgieter was given a yellow card for a swinging arm tackle on Patrick Osborne near the Waratahs try-line.

But by that stage the game had already become one-way traffic and the Waratahs never looked like catching up.

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COMPANY PROFILE

Company: Bidzi

● Started: 2024

● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid

● Based: Dubai, UAE

● Industry: M&A

● Funding size: Bootstrapped

● No of employees: Nine

BULKWHIZ PROFILE

Date started: February 2017

Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: E-commerce 

Size: 50 employees

Funding: approximately $6m

Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait

ADCC AFC Women’s Champions League Group A fixtures

October 3: v Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC
October 6: v Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women’s FC
October 9: v Sabah FA

Tree of Hell

Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla

Director: Raed Zeno

Rating: 4/5

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Movie: Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster 3

Producer: JAR Films

Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Jimmy Sheirgill, Mahie Gill, Chitrangda Singh, Kabir Bedi

Rating: 3 star

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Final round

25 under -  Antoine Rozner (FRA)

23 - Francesco Laporta (ITA), Mike Lorenzo-Vera (FRA), Andy Sullivan (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG)

21 - Grant Forrest (SCO)

20 - Ross Fisher (ENG)

19 - Steven Brown (ENG), Joakim Lagergren (SWE), Niklas Lemke (SWE), Marc Warren (SCO), Bernd Wiesberger (AUT)

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THE DETAILS

Director: Milan Jhaveri
Producer: Emmay Entertainment and T-Series
Cast: John Abraham, Manoj Bajpayee
Rating: 2/5

Fixtures

50-over match

UAE v Lancashire, starts at 10am

Champion County match

MCC v Surrey, four-day match, starting on Sunday, March 24, play starts at 10am

Both matches are at ICC Academy, Dubai Sports City. Admission is free.

The Bio

Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”

Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”

Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”

Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher:  Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5

The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Power: 268bhp / 536bhp
Torque: 343Nm / 686Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
On sale: Later this year
Company%20profile
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Sam Smith

Where: du Arena, Abu Dhabi

When: Saturday November 24

Rating: 4/5

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5

TRAP

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue

Director: M Night Shyamalan

Rating: 3/5

'Joker'

Directed by: Todd Phillips

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix

Rating: Five out of five stars

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bundesliga results

Mainz 0 Augsburg 1 (Niederlechner 1')

Schalke 1 (Caligiuri pen 51') Bayer Leverkusen 1 (Miranda og 81')

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Warlight,
Michael Ondaatje, Knopf 

The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE. 

Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on

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Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative 


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