Canes weather the Stormers
The Hurricanes don’t make things easy for themselves.
It took them almost the entire 80 minutes to see off a dogged Stormers side at Westpac Stadium in Wellington last night, eventually winning 34-28.
Captain and first-five Beauden Barrett got what turned out to be the match-winning try with 10 left in a 16-point personal haul.
The Hurricanes – playing without resting All Blacks Dane Coles, TJ Perenara and Ngani Laumape – wanted to play a hightempo, pressure game to wear out the Stormers pack, but managed that only for patches of the game.
The Stormers were just as effective at implementing their gameplan of dominating the set pieces, winning penalties, kicking to the corner and throwing wave after wave of rolling mauls at the Hurricanes – some from as far as 35 metres out from the Hurricanes’ line.
After two Stormers penalties from SP Marais, Hurricanes prop Ben May was the surprising instigator, and scorer, of the game’s first try.
He broke through the Stormers defence inside his own half before throwing an outrageous long pass for Jordie Barrett to run down the left wing. That led to a Beauden Barrett kick into the corner, which led to the Hurricanes winning a lineout against the throw and May scoring from a pick-and-go in the 12th minute.
Five minutes later Ben Lam butchered a certain try when knocking on a Beauden Barrett grubber kick across the tryline when he should probably have just dived on the ball. Lam also had another opportunity later in the half, but Stormers fullback Dillyn Leyds made a brilliant oneon-one tackle as the last defender on his own 22.
Stormers first-five Jean-Luc du Plessis was sin-binned midway through the half when committing back-to-back ruck infringements with the Hurricanes attacking the Stormers’ line. That led directly to Jordie Barrett getting on the end of a Richard Judd grubber kick to score his first try.
But the Stormers hit back with a rolling maul try to captain Siya Kolisi before du Plessis returned, and they were in the ascendancy the rest of the half with the game script starting to play into their hands as the penalties started to mount against the home side (7-3 in the first half).
After the halftime hooter, Vaea Fifita made a tackle where his shoulder hit the head of a Stormers player. He was yellowcarded and the Stormers kicked for the corner, with hooker Bongi Mbonambi scoring off the back of a rolling maul to give the Stormers a 21-15 halftime lead.
The Hurricanes got through the eight or so minutes without Fifita to start the second half unscathed before Wes Goosen
dotted down with a good winger’s finish in the right corner 12 minutes into the second half. Beauden Barrett nailed the sideline conversion to give his side the lead.
But again the Stormers hit back in the only way they know how – with a rolling maul. They didn’t score directly from this one, but a couple of phases later Jaco Coetzee crashed over from close range, with the TMO finding enough evidence of him grounding the ball to award the try.
Goosen completed an even better finish than his first to again dot down in the right corner in the 62nd minute, but this time Barrett shanked the conversion to leave his side down by one.
A barnstorming run from Ardie Savea put the Hurricanes on the front foot with 10 minutes to go, leading to Beauden Barrett scoring a try next to the posts to give his side a six-point advantage.
The Hurricanes spent almost all of the final 10 minutes defending stoically inside their own half.