Hurricanes’ focus is on their home record
You would never accuse TJ Perenara of not being a patriot.
But that doesn’t mean the Hurricanes and All Blacks halfback doesn’t see this 39-0 business for the nonsense that it is.
Let Australia worry that their franchises have now lost 39 games to New Zealand foes on the trot. Perenara and his team-mates are too busy winning.
‘‘I don’t care too much about it, to be honest. I care if we win or if we don’t. It’s not a huge concern of mine,’’ Perenara said of the streak.
More pressing to the team is the home record they’ve built under the coaching of Chris Boyd and John Plumtree.
The then-Super Rugby champion Waratahs team beat them at Westpac Stadium, in April 2015. The Hurricanes then went on to lose that season’s decider to the Highlanders.
Since then it’s just the Chiefs, 17-14 in June last year, who’ve come to Wellington and won. The Hurricanes have the Reds tonight, then Blues in July, still to play at home this season and they’re in no hurry to lose either.
‘‘Yeah, I care about it,’’ said Perenara of the recent record.
‘‘I care about the way that we perform at home and away, but to be able to put performances on our field consistently and make it a hard place for other teams to come and play, I think it helps us as a football team and as a franchise and if we can continue to build on that, that helps us in the future as well.’’
The Hurricanes have won nine games straight, since their round one loss to the Bulls in Pretoria, but they are by no means satisfied. ‘‘If we were honest with ourselves, we haven’t been a consistent team for the duration of a game. So we want to be physical on defence and we want to be accurate on offence, so if we’re able to do that for long periods of time it gives us a better chance of winning the ball-game,’’ Perenara said.
With Brad Shields freshening up on the bench, Perenara is captain this week. The team had it’s Captain’s Run yesterday, in which reserve lock Vaea Fifita came through without any illeffects from the head knock he suffered in the 36-15 win over the Blues. However, his eventual participation in this game won’t be confirmed until he arrives symptom-free for this afternoon’s pre-match run around.