Canes coach bites tongue on officials’ blunder
The Hurricanes brushed off the bizarre Jordie Barrett conversion that wasn’t, well aware there are more important things to address after a penalty-laden loss to the Blues.
Coach Jason Holland will reassemble his side under Covid-19 alert level 2 restrictions at their Wellington base today, to prepare for round two against the Crusaders behind closed doors on Saturday night.
Amid plenty of talking points and work-ons in a typically messy early season encounter, Barrett being wrongly denied a conversion in the 31-16 Super Rugby Aotearoa loss will not be high on the list.
At the time it was a big deal, in the 63rd minute at Sky Stadium after Hurricanes wrecking ball Asafo Aumua charged over for his second try to narrow the Blues’ lead to 21-16.
Barrett knocked the conversion over, looked happy and was then mortified to see referee assistants Mike Fraser and James Doleman’s flags stay down. A replay several minutes later on the big screen had the home crowd of 13,305 howling, but it was too late.
‘‘When I see Jordie pick his tee up and throw, he thinks he’s got it. I don’t know,’’ Holland said.
‘‘That wasn’t one of the major things I was looking at, at the time but Jordie thinks it went over. It’s a trivial point at the moment, really.’’
An Otere Black penalty then a 65m Rieko Ioane try inside the final five minutes sealed the deal for the Blues, but the fact a referee, two touch judges and a television match official couldn’t see Barrett’s conversion slip inside the right upright to narrow the gap to three points at a vital stage was alarming.
Said Hurricanes captain Ardie Savea, in his 100th match and first as skipper: ‘‘Paul [Williams, referee] said that the TMO had an angle that clearly showed it didn’t go over, so there’s only so much that you can do, and argue, so I just tried to move on and focus on the next moment.’’
Savea was immense and lifted his
Hurricanes back into the contest on his big night. They had their moments on attack, notably Aumua sending bodies flying, but errors, poor kicks and penalties were a worry. The Blues’ pack also had a clear edge with a powerful scrum and effective rolling maul.
Discipline was the obvious focus after Williams blew 27 penalties, 15 of them against the Hurricanes. Two of those resulted in yellow cards, with lock James Blackwell and flanker Du’Plessis Kirifi sent off either side of halftime and the Hurricanes down to 14 men for 20 minutes.
‘‘We were in at halftime and feeling like we were playing some good footy and had them under the pump [11-7 up],’’ Holland said.
‘‘The boys showed a lot of ticker for a long period when we were down to 14, but no team is going to be able to defend, defend and have their flow taken away by having 14 men for a long time and give penalties.
‘‘It’s a big part of where the game is going, discipline is massive. We weren’t good enough there tonight.’’
While the Blues establish a temporary base outside Auckland, with the bye this weekend, the
Hurricanes face the toughest trip in New Zealand rugby albeit without braying red and black fans in the stands.
They’ll also be without lock Scott Scrafton who faces time on the sidelines after falling heavily on his left ankle. He ended the night on crutches, wearing a moonboot.
One positive is they did the job there last year, toppling the eventual Aotearoa champions in Christchurch amid a five-match winning streak. The Crusaders got their 2021 campaign under way with a 26-13 win in Dunedin on Friday.
‘‘We got an awesome squad, an awesome group of boys who are working really hard. We just need to be really smart around how we train and what we fix,’’ Holland said. ‘‘At times in that first half we were really good in our attack and strong in our defence but not for long enough. We’ll pick the good bits out, and fix up our discipline, and it’s always pretty exciting to go down there.’’
They will be better for the run but again need to play catch-up, fast, after opening losses to the Blues and Crusaders last year cost them a shot at the Aotearoa title.