Late Laumape try has Hurricanes snatch last-gasp victory
What a heartstopper that was.
So much for the expectation had been that the Hurricanes would beat the Sharks by plenty, at Napier’s McLean Park on Friday night.
Beat them they did, but only by the skin of their teeth, 38-37 thanks to some late Ngani Laumape heroics.
Hard luck to the Sharks but good on the Hurricanes for finding a way to win a game they seemed destined to lose once first fiveeighth Beauden Barrett was a late scratching, due to a tight quadracep muscle.
When halfbackTJ Perenara joined him on the bench at halftime with, what appeared to be a knee injury, the Hurricanes didn’t appear to have the quality to get out of a tight spot.
Losing Beauden Barrett definitely wasn’t the ideal prematch preparation. He’d trained
all week but was not deemed fit to play, on a precautionary basis as much as anything.
It wasn’t that stand-in West played badly. Just that he wasn’t Beauden Barrett.
The entire Hurricanes team were hardly themselves in the opening 40 minutes.
They’d come into the match having conceded a competitionbest 80 points this season, but leaked like a sieve against the Sharks.
With first five-eighth Robert du Preez pulling all the strings and others such as Lukhanyo Am and Tendai Mtawarira running strongly, the Sharks shot out to a 27-19 halftime lead.
The Hurricanes had constructed decent tries to Jordie Barrett and Ngani Laumape, on their way to an early 12-3 lead. But the Sharks hit back through Am and Louis Schreuder.
A lucky Vince Aso try had the Hurricanes 19-17 up but du Preez’s boot and another Am try settled the first-half scoring.
The Hurricanes had kicked away and dropped too much ball and made way, way too many bad reads in defence. Putting ballrunners on the deck was meant to be one of the team’s strengths and here they were unable to even identify which guy to tackle.
Rockets aren’t usually a big part of coach Chris Boyd’s halftime arsenal, but he and assistant John Plumtree would’ve been well within their rights to fire a volley or two.
West kicked a couple of penalties, to start the second spell, but there wasn’t a great deal different about the Hurricanes’ rugby. They were still making errors, still battling to put the Sharks on the deck and still behind on the scoreboard.
That they were just 30-25 in arrears, with 20 play, was fortunate. The Sharks had any number of chances to extend that advantage, but found unique ways to blow them.
The Hurricanes were hanging on but more because of Sharks mistakes, than their own good deeds.
A West penalty narrowed things to 30-28, with eight minutes to play. But the Sharks finally got some reward for their efforts when replacement forward Tyler Paul powered over for a try. Du Preez’s conversion appeared to seal a deserved win.
But the Hurricanes kept pushing and pushing and, after multiple phases on the Sharks’ line, West put Laumape over to make it 37-36. Fair play to him for then stepping up to slot the conversion.