Champs or chumps?

Hurricanes impose great expectations

So it’s a title – or bust – for Brad Shields and the Hurricanes.

Gone are the days of taking each game as it comes, or hoping to play to their potential. Sounds like you’re either Super Rugby champs or you’re chumps.

‘‘Our expectation now is we’re in finals contention every year, and I think that’s where we’ve grown as group and a club. In the past we could’ve just been happy with making finals, but we want to push for semifinal and final spots every year and win that championship,’’ Shields said ahead of tomorrow’s seasonopener against the Bulls in Pretoria.

And if the Hurricanes do win this year’s championship, there’s a fair chance Shields would be lifting the trophy. Or at least one of the handles.

Injury meant Dane Coles was Hurricanes captain (mostly) in name only last year and is in the same boat this time around. He might be back from his knee injury in June, he might not.

Halfback TJ Perenara proved a very able stand-in during the 2017 season, but it’s Shields who’s got the job this year.

‘‘When we sat down and looked at the different roles, the different people in the team and the different strengths that they had to bring to the team, TJ – who’s totally team-focused – was the first guy to say ‘I think we’re better if Brad is the captain and I’m the guy barking in behind’,’’ Hurricanes head coach Chris Boyd said.

‘‘So he’s a great sergeant major, old TJ, and it works better for us and he was really comfortable with that, and so was everybody else.’’

Shields described the appointment as ‘‘one of those things you sort of dream of as a kid’’ but that’s about as flowery as his language got. Like Coles, he’s a man

of deeds and they’re all he and the Hurricanes will be judged by in Pretoria tomorrow.

‘‘What we know of them is they’re bloody hard to beat at Loftus [Versfeld]. They’ll come out chewing glass and breathing fire and if we don’t put that physicality to bed, it’s going to be a very long day at the office,’’ said Boyd.

‘‘It’s absolutely not a game that we’re under-estimating.’’

Hence the selection of Beauden Barrett on the bench and the general condition of the Hurricanes’ players.

With Boyd instructed by New Zealand Rugby to excuse Barrett – and the rest of his All Blacks – for two games this season, this seemed a good option. Barrett hasn’t had any pre-season footy, arrived in camp late after attending a family wedding, and the Bulls aren’t the best team on the Hurricanes’ schedule.

But Boyd has staked plenty on accumulating points from this match, then next week’s clash with the Jaguares in Buenos Aires and the Crusaders at home on March 10. The Hurricanes haven’t had a travel schedule like that before and getting the Crusaders at the end of it isn’t hugely appealing.

‘‘That’s an extraordinarily tough week and our trainers have noted that, physically and mentally, that’s the toughest three weeks that the Hurricanes have ever had to endure. We’re very mindful of that,’’ Boyd said.

‘‘We want to push for semifinal and final spots every year and win that championship.’’

Brad Shields, Hurricanes captain