Hurricanes finish on right side of scrappy affair
At least the result was better than last week.
Hurricanes 34 Jaguares 9 won’t linger long in the memory bank, but gaining maximum points from yesterday’s Super Rugby clash at Estadio Jose Amalfitani was all that mattered.
Both teams battled to hold on to the football, making for a pretty uninspiring spectacle. But no-one got injured and the Jaguares never breached the tryline and that’s something to feel semi-grateful for.
You just wonder how a Hurricanes team with so much tal- ent can commit so many errors. Particularly when they’d hoped to produce an emphatic response to last week’s loss to the Bulls.
Instead the team were again inaccurate and battled to get the required physical ascendancy. The scrum struggled to stay up or intact and possession wasn’t treasured, on the occasions when the Hurricanes were in a position to create something.
No-one wants to make light of how hard it is go to South Africa and then Argentina - or play in genuine summer time temperatures - but coach Chris Boyd said there would be no excuses this week. They hadn’t played well in Pretoria, they would be better in Buenos Aires and they wouldn’t blame any external factors if they weren’t.
Well, at 12-6 after 40 minutes, the good news was the Hurricanes were leading. But that was about it. Tries to Ben Lam and Ngani Laumape were pretty well taken and both those men had strong halves, along with team-mates such as Sam Lousi and Gareth Evans but, overall, there was some pretty untidy rugby played. Many folk have the Hurricanes contending for this year’s title, but they’re a fair way off that level right now.
In his first start since last November, Beauden Barrett was a mixed bag at first five-eighth and you yearned to see someone take control of things.
A lot of cute stuff got tried, when simply giving guys such as Laumape, Vaea Fifita and Lousi the chance to carry strongly might’ve been a better option.
It took Nicolas Sanchez, with his third penalty of the match, to begin the second half scoring, narrowing the deficit to just three points. If the Hurricanes were going to rattle on a few quick tries - and put the game to bed - then they needed to get on with it.
Finally wing Julian Savea skittled a few defenders, in the 53rd minute, to get Matt Proctor over the line to score. Proctor had just gone from centre to fullback, after Jordie Barrett’s uneventful comeback from shoulder surgery.
Things were looking a little more promising, until prop Ben May took someone out off the ball to earn himself a yellow card. The Hurricanes had waited so long to gain a bit of momentum and it disappeared in the time it takes to put in a shoulder charge.
Evans had to sit down so Alex Fidow could come on and pack a few scrums.
Barrett soon grubber-kicked cleverly for replacement Vince Aso to score and the conversion made it a more comfortable 26-9 with 15 minutes to play.
The Jaguares huffed and puffed from that point on, without the quality to turn it into points. It took replacement forward Blade Thomson to provide that, launching and finishing a late Hurricanes movement.