It’s 15s that count for the Hurricanes
No marquee Hurricanes will be breaking their collective agreements to play Mickey Mouse footy.
To hear some people talk about it, you’d think the inaugural Brisbane Global Tens were an Olympic Games or Rugby World Cup. In reality they’re a bit of preseason private enterprise and the defending Super Rugby champions are treating them as such.
Former World Cup winners Cory Jane and Nehe Milner-Skudder, along with the national team’s endof-year-tour add-ons Jordie Barrett and Vaea Fifita, will be as close as the Hurricanes get to taking their ‘‘stars’’ to Suncorp Stadium. The team’s frontline All Blacks - Dane Coles, Beauden Barrett, TJ Perenara, Ardie Savea and Julian Savea - will instead make their 2017 debuts at the Border club in Waverley on February 17, as scheduled.
‘‘I never included any of those [five] guys in my thinking or calculations at all,’’ Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said of the team’s tens squad.
Coles and company will be among the 14 players Boyd leaves behind, to prepare to play the Crusaders in Waverley and then the team’s first competition match against the Sunwolves in Tokyo on February 25.
The Hurricanes - along with New Zealand’s four other Super Rugby franchises - are taking 26 players to Brisbane, with 18 to strip for each match. They’re all being paid a healthy appearance fee, on top of the $1.6 million in prizemoney up for grabs.
Boyd denied the event was a nuisance but had no idea what the rules of 10-a-side rugby are and wouldn’t look to learn until the team fly over for the February 11 and 12 tournament.
He’d like the tens to be a success, just not at the expense a good result against the Sunwolves. ‘‘For us, all roads lead to Tokyo.’’ There’s bound to be the odd bump between now and then, but things are running smoothly for the time being.
The Hurricanes’ five All Blacks don’t officially report for duty until Monday, although Boyd and captain Coles have been in contact and a svelte Julian Savea made an impressive appearance at the team’s training base last week.
‘‘The first thing I said to him was ‘mate you’re a different person’,’’ Boyd said.
‘‘He’s certainly physically very different than he was at this time last year; I think in himself he’s much more chipper as well. He came in and he had plenty of cheek about him and was on top of himself, so he’s in good physical and mental shape and we’ll be hoping that transpires into some good form early season.’’
The same is true of Savea’s fellow wing Jane, who is back from an offseason stint in Japan. Boyd heard Jane before he saw him, with the veteran immediately holding court like he’d never been away.
In Jane’s absence, the rest of the squad have been sweating it out on watt bikes in an altitude chamber. Boyd said the players likened the experience to ‘‘trying to breathe through a sock’’ and among the toughest fitness sessions they’d ever done.
The players have completed six sessions over three weeks, with Boyd unsure exactly what the benefits would be. But, like the wrestling, boxing and gymnastics the squad have done during the preseason, the altitude stuff certainly provided variety.
‘‘I was really keen to run a decathlon down at the athletics track but the medical people said rugby players are not suited for decathlon, so things like high jump and stuff were ruled out,’’ said Boyd.