Canes left shaken, shivering
Just before 8am yesterday, the mercury barely at 10degC and rain pelting down, Hurricanes management all gathered in the offices of their Rugby League Park base.
The shivering players began filtering in for week two of training for Super Rugby Aotearoa; their re-opener against the Blues in Auckland 20 days away.
Then the rumbling started, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake centred north of Levin, in Canes heartland.
‘‘It was like a truck rolling down the road. The whole place started shaking and it was pretty loud . . . It gave us a fright and brought us into the moment pretty quickly,’’ assistant coach Chris Gibbes said.
Sufficiently jolted awake but unharmed, players, coaches and support staff ventured out into the arctic southerly later in the morning, 16 weeks after they’d opened the Super Rugby season on a 27degC day in Cape Town with a 27-0 loss to the Stormers. A fair bit has changed since then.
‘‘I haven’t been this cold or wet for a long time. The boys definitely put a good shift in considering the weather,’’ Gibbes said, via Zoom call. ‘‘We reminded each other of how hot it was in South Africa and Argentina . . that was a long, long time ago.’’
Now it’s the question all five New Zealand franchises are asking: how quickly can each get up to speed for an intensely physical, high octane resumption of rugby after the longest hiatus of many top-flight careers? Without any warmup matches, too.
All Blacks star Beauden Barrett made an early statement last Monday with a Blues record Bronco fitness test time of 4min 12sec, also a personal best.
His layoff was even longer, since the World Cup last October, and Barrett’s clash with his former Hurricanes team-mates – and one sibling – shapes as one of the highlights of round one.
Brother Jordie managed a tick over 4min 20sec for his Bronco test (a 1.2km shuttle run of 20m, 40m and 60m) and Gibbes said he ‘‘emptied the tank’’. The coach was delighted with the Hurricanes’ fitness and the form of their Barrett.
On the field, Jordie Barrett produced a compelling body of rugby work this year, too, in the early Super rounds. His most recent appearance summed up his contribution, another impressive all-round display at fullback before he kicked the winning penalty against the Chiefs on March 13.
‘‘He’s a quality player. You look at that Chiefs game, he kicked a goal at the end but have a look at how he’s controlled that game with his kicking, and some of the collisions and carries, he had a massive impact on that game. He’s going from strength to strength,’’ Gibbes said.
‘‘It will take a couple of weeks to get that momentum back, potentially, and hopefully when we play the Blues in round one we’ve got that rust out of our game and he has too. He’s a quality, class player and a guy that works really hard at his game. I look forward to watching him go.’’
Gibbes said contact training would ‘‘amp up’’ this week but not too quickly as they tread carefully with players whose fitness is strong but conditioning for high impact collisions not so advanced.
With no warmup matches, a 15 v 15 intra-squad contest might be the closest they get.
Star loose forward Ardie Savea – another who hasn’t played since the World Cup after undergoing knee surgery – is one who will be closely watched. ‘‘Ardie is working his way back. He’s still not 100 per cent where he needs to be, but he’s in pretty good form.’’
And in the front row, the battle of the hookers will continue with Dane Coles, Ricky Riccitelli and Asafo Aumua all vying for No 2 or No 16 jerseys.
‘‘We’ve got quality and it’s competitive as hell. We’ve got to keep working hard with all three of them. There’s going to be some pretty tough decisions to be made,’’ Said Gibbes.