Canes signal their intent for Lions clash

Thirty-two, 47, 16, black. What’s that? Thirty-two, 47, 16, black. Mate, we can’t hear you over these flaming Lions. Give it to us again.

‘‘Noise pollution’’ the British and Irish Lions call it. It’s certainly a racket and among the reasons why the home teams’ lineouts have gone to pieces on this tour.

Be it Super Rugby sides or New Zealand Maori, the inability of the hosts to gain a reliable source of quality ball has been marked. Even the Crusaders, with an all-All Blacks tight five, couldn’t combat the Lions’ tactic of screaming and shouting while the lineout calls were being made.

We’ll see how the All Blacks fare at Eden Park tonight, before the Hurricanes have their turn on Tuesday. It

The inability of the hosts to gain a reliable source of quality ball has been marked.

remains to be seen what approach the All Blacks take, but the Hurricanes have a novel idea to eliminate the impact of the noise.

‘‘We picked up from the boys with the Maori team that it was an issue,’’ Hurricanes head coach Chris Boyd said.

‘‘I’m not sure how much of a place there is for that in the game. But if it is a game tactic it won’t matter for us because we do our lineouts with hand signals anyway, so the verbal cues don’t mean anything.’’

Boyd didn’t demonstrate, but the hand signals aren’t too daft. Historically hookers or locks have been hollering calls but it’s been halfbacks - via hands on hips, hands on knees, feet pointed straight ahead, feet pointing right and so on and so forth - who’ve signalled where the ball’s going.

While the Hurricanes will have some control over what they call and where they throw, their scrum will be slightly at the mercy of referee Romain Poite on Tuesday.

South Africa’s Jaco Peyper will referee the first All Blacks v Lions test before France’s Jerome Garces - who controlled the Lions’ win over the Chiefs takes over for test two, then Poite gets the third.

Already on this trip we’ve seen French referees interpret the scrum laws differently from, say, Australia’s Angus Gardner, who did the Provincial Barbarians and Highlanders games.