GO THE NZ HURRICANES!
SUPER FINAL SHOWDOWN
Can the Canes tame the Lions?
The Hurricanes will head into next Saturday’s Super Rugby final against the Lions as favourites because of the form of Beauden Barrett and a defence which hasn’t been breached in more than three hours.
Two moments of genius from Barrett resulted in his side’s first two tries, one to Willis Haloholo when the firstfive chipped out of his own territory, regathered and went on a curving run around James Lowe to provide the assist for his second-five, and the other when he intercepted Sam Cane’s pass to score under the posts.
Both tries were daggers to the side of a Chiefs team weary from their travel back from South Africa and reeling from their inability to penetrate a Hurricanes defence which is now proving to be the best in the competition.
They kept the Sharks scoreless in their quarter-final, and battered the Chiefs’ attack into submission in their 25-9 semifinal victory. In the end, despite the various offensive talents of Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Aaron Cruden, Seta Tamanivalu, Damian McKenzie and James Lowe, the Chiefs had no idea how to escape the clutches of the home side’s defenders.
The Lions, who finished second on the table, will bring different challenges, but it’s hard to see how they can get the better of a team determined to outdo last year.
The tone was set in the first half at the Cake Tin when the Chiefs went all out for the try, turning down several kickable penalties, only to come up with nothing.
“We won that first half due to that period on defence,” coach Chris Boyd said afterwards. “They had a sustained crack at our line for a long period of time which we repelled and repelled and repelled and then we scrambled a crumb and got down the other end.”
And Boyd said the turning point this season in terms of his team’s defence came after the Chiefs’ roundrobin victory in Wellington, the only home game the Hurricanes have lost this year.
“We were really grumpy with our defence and we had a pretty harsh meeting the next night at the airport in Sydney about wanting to make changes about that.”
The response was a big victory over the Lions at Ellis Park, a good omen for a team gunning for their maiden championship.
“It’s grown from there,” Boyd said. “We have worked hard at getting our game going when we haven’t got the ball.”
With Barrett and halfback TJ Perenara in such good form, and flanker Ardie Savea outplaying All Blacks No 7 rival Sam Cane, combined with what is obviously an incredible bond between the players, the Hurricanes are building what appears to be an irresistible momentum, and Boyd left the media in no doubt as to what a final victory would mean.
“Obviously the pain from last year’s final is still with us and we’ll be throwing the kitchen sink at it next week.”
He hopes to get hooker Dane Coles back from his rib cartilage injury, but hookers Ricky Riccitelli and Leni Apisai were superb in the absence of the regular skipper.