Canes coach stunned by shock loss to Bulls
At this rate it won’t be till after Anzac Day that the Hurricanes get off the mark for 2018.
Every man and his dog had them as bonus-point winners over the Bulls, at Loftus Versfeld yesterday morning. So on the back of their eventual 21-19 defeat in Pretoria, all bets are off.
The Hurricanes have the Jaguares in Buenos Aires, Crusaders and Highlanders at home, Rebels (away) and Sharks and Chiefs at home, before the Sunwolves arrive at Westpac Stadium on April 27. You don’t want to sound alarmist but, if the Hurricanes make a habit of playing the way they did against the Bulls, you can’t take any game for granted this season.
‘‘In the period of time that I’ve been coaching, I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a game where we’ve prepared so well and delivered so little,’’ Hurricanes head coach Chris Boyd said from Pretoria.
For most people, the realisation the Hurricanes wouldn’t win probably came late in the piece. Boyd knew they were in trouble ‘‘about three minutes in.’’
‘‘We’d been preparing to play the Bulls at altitude since the 25th of November and probably earlier than that, because we knew what we were faced with. We got here and basically we ran out of legs again at altitude very quickly and were unable to put our game together either defensively or offensively,’’ said Boyd.
‘‘The things that we normally do, we just stopped doing. So our defence was passive and wasn’t well connected and when we started trying to play, we ran out of bodies to play with because guys weren’t getting there.
‘‘I’ll have to go back and have a look at the video, but they were either getting tied up in rucks or they were tired. So they weren’t getting there and we resorted to kicking and we kicked the ball away too much.’’
This performance wasn’t unlike that in last year’s semifinal loss to the Lions in Johannesburg. On that occasion the team ran out of puff, had limited intent in their tackling and kicked in the hope of catching their breath.
It didn’t work then and - despite the months of preparation Boyd mentioned - didn’t pay dividends this time either.
The Hurricanes couldn’t put the Bulls’ ball-runners on their backsides, with locks RG Snyman and Lood de Jager both allowed to run freely. Tries to Johnny Kotze and de Jager helped the Bulls to a 16-12 halftime lead, with Ricky Riccitelli and Wes Goosen replying for the visitors.
The second half was a stopstart, scrappy affair in which the Hurricanes weren’t accurate enough to turn opportunities into points. TJ Perenara had a try disallowed for insufficient downward pressure - which Boyd felt was debatable but not the reason for the final outcome - Beauden Barrett scored from close range and then Bulls prop Pierre Schoeman got the matchwinner eight minutes from time.
‘‘It’s easy in these situations to start pointing the finger and trying to find a solution and there’s probably not one thing; there’s probably a whole bunch of things. But, at the end of the day, that’s probably the worst performance in the four years - or three and a bit years - that I’ve been involved in the Hurricanes,’’ Boyd said.
Toby Smith (chin cut/head knock) and Goosen (ankle) are the main injury concerns out of the match.and there’s a chance they might go straight home, rather than on to Buenos Aires.