Magpies No8 Evans to start for Hurricanes again
All Blacks and Hawke’s Bay Magpies No 8 Gareth Evans will have his second consecutive start for the Hurricanes in their final Super Rugby pre-season match against the Blues in Mangatainoka tomorrow.
Evans will be one of seven Canes, including four forwards, who started in last weekend’s 34-19 loss to the Crusaders in Levin pulling on a starting XV jersey again. Former Magpies hooker Ricky Riccitelli, prop Jeff To’omaga-Allen and blindside flanker Reed Prinsep, who will captain the hosts, also started against the defending champions.
While Evans is the only Magpie in the starting XV prop Ben May, lock Geoff Cridge and outside back Danny Toala have been named on the bench. Toala isn’t a fully contracted Cane but has been rewarded for his efforts while in camp with the franchise during the past month.
The Proctor brothers will start in the Canes midfield in what will be the squad’s last hit-out before facing the Waratahs in Sydney in next week’s opening round of the competition. Younger brother Billy will be at second five-eighth and senior sibling Matt at centre.
First five-eighth Fletcher Smith, who was originally meant to start against the Crusaders but came off the bench, will combine with halfback Finlay Christie who has recovered from a minor hamstring injury which kept him out of the Levin game.
The reserve bench has been reduced from last week with a number of players who featured in Levin playing for the Hurricanes under-20 side against the Blues in Palmerston North today.
Canes head coach, former Magpies John Plumtree, said the coaching staff had taken a lot of positives out of the review of the Crusaders match and were looking forward to the challenge the Blues will bring after they had a good 43-10 win over the Chiefs in their warm-up game in Kaikohe last weekend.
“There are obviously a lot of things to work on at this stage of the season but we will be hoping the guys have made improvements in some areas from last week’s match,” he said. ■ The Hurricanes squad for the 3pm game: 15 Chase Tiatia, 14 Vince Aso, 13 Matt Proctor, 12 Billy Proctor, 11 Ben Lam, 10 Fletcher Smith, 9 Finlay Christie, 8 Gareth Evans, 7 Du’Plessis Kirifi, 6 Reed Prinsep (c), 5 Liam Mitchell, 4 James Blackwell, 3 Jeff To’omaga-Allen, 2 Ricky Riccitelli, 1 Chris Eves. Reserves: 16 Asafo Aumua, 17 James O’Reilly, 18 Ben May, 19
Alex Fidow, 20 Fraser Armstrong, 21 Isaia Walker-Leawere, 22 Geoff Cridge, 23 Heiden Bedwell-Curtis, 24 Sam Henwood, 25 Teariki BenNicholas, 26 Carlos Price, 27 Jono Hickey, 28 Jackson GardenBachop, 29 Danny Toala, 30 Wes Goosen, 31 Salesi Rayasi.