Battered Canes forced to dig deep
Chris Boyd had rarely seen a Hurricanes’ dressing room in quite that state of dishevelment.
Injuries to Ardie Savea, Mark Abbott and Wes Goosen, along with the high altitude and a determined Bulls side, meant the visitors were in a pretty sorry state after their 34-20 bonus-point win at Loftus Versfeld.
First five-eighth Beauden Barrett sat the match out entirely after experiencing headaches in the days since the team arrived in South Africa.
Barrett suffered a head knock in last week’s win over the Cheetahs, but Boyd said team medical staff had been unable to determine if the headaches were a result of that or the jet lag and altitude change that most of the squad were battling with.
It all contributed to what was quite a brave victory, for Super Rugby’s defending champions.
"The Bulls are an icon of South Africa rugby, they’ve had a poor season, but they threw everything emotionally, physically and technically and tactically at us and at the end of the day it was a gutsy win,’’ Boyd said.
‘‘It wasn’t great technically and it’s wasn’t great tactically but we’ll get a lot of positives out of the fact we had to go pretty deep in the well emotionally and did okay.’’
Players such as prop Loni Uhila were spent by halftime and had to be replaced. Others, captain TJ Perenara among them, didn’t hit the wall until nearer the end.
Then there was someone such as flanker Vaea Fifita, who finished up playing about half the game at lock once Abbott was concussed, and was riddled with cramp by then.
Ardie Savea joined Abbott in suffering concussion, while Goosen injured ribs or a shoulder while trying to put a big shot on in defence.
‘‘The real positive we take out of it was that it wasn’t perfect by any means. We made some poor decisions and made some mistakes but we gutsed it out which was great to see,’’ said Boyd.
The plan had been to gain the five competition-points by running the Bulls ragged early doors and piling on points at the end.
Early long-range tries to Jordie Barrett, off a great Uhila short ball, then second five-eighth Ngani Laumape were promising. But the Bulls turned out to be pretty stout opposition and ought to have led 16-14 at one point.
But the Hurricanes responded to a missed Tian Schoeman penalty with a try to Goosen, before Abbott went over almost five minutes after the hooter had signalled halftime.
The Hurricanes had opportunities to settle for a kick at goal, but the decision to keep working for a try proved critical in the scheme of things.
Instead of being down, the Hurricanes went to the break 24-13 up and they needed all of those points as the game developed.
With the team out of gas, first fiveeighth Otere Black kicked a rare penalty, before a counter-attacking try was finished by replacement hooker Leni Apisai. Beyond that, the second half was real backs-to-the-wall stuff.
The team move on to Perth on Monday, where they meet the Force on Saturday.
None of the party have been ruled
out of that match yet and their number is likely to be boosted by the arrival of outside back Nehe Milner-skudder.
Foot fractures have kept him out since March 10 but, provided he passes a fitness test on Monday morning, he’ll be available to meet the Force.
In Brisbane: (Marcel Brache, Ross Haylett-petty, Tatafu Polota-nau tries, 2 penalty tries; Peter Grant 3 con, 4 pen)
(Stephen Moore 2, Duncan Paia’aua, Lukhan Tui tries; Quade Cooper 3 con). HT: 13-5.
In Tokyo: (Uzair Cassiem 2, Niell Jordaan, Niel Marais, Tian Meyer, Sergeal Petersen, Torsten van Jaarsveld tries; Marais 5 con, Francois Uys con) (Sam Wykes try; Yu Tamura con). HT: 14-0.
In Dunedin: (Richard Buckman, Liam Coltman, Tevita Li, Daniel Lienert-brown, Lima Sopoaga, Rob Thompson tries; Sopoaga 3 con, Marty Banks con, 2 pen) (Jake Gordon 2, Israel Folau, Taqele Naiyaravoro tries; Bernard Foley 4 con). HT: 13-14.