Barrett OK, Perenara in doubt
Beauden Barrett trained yesterday and is expected to play the Chiefs on Friday. However, the news isn’t as good for his regular Hurricanes halves partner, though.
Details from the team were scant, but it sounds as if halfback TJ Perenara suffered some medial ligament damage in the 38-37 win over the Sharks. Jamie Booth replaced him at halftime in that match and is preparing to start Friday’s derby at Westpac Stadium.
‘‘Beaudy’s all go today. You’ll see him out there shortly. He’ll be easing into the week but we expect him to be right,’’ Hurricanes backs coach Jason Holland said.
‘‘TJ has presented really well this morning, better than we thought he would be on Friday. But he’s still really touch and go for the weekend.’’
As a rule, if you can train Monday then you’re in contention to play on the weekend. If not, the Hurricanes scratch you and put their energy into the guys who are playing.
Holland said Perenara ‘‘might’ve tweaked the MCL’’ which would be confirmed, or not, by a scan later yesterday.
Booth’s certainly working under the assumption that he’ll be wearing No.9. The Manawatu player had a mixed time of it against the Sharks, helping guide the team to a memorable victory but also having the odd box kick charged down.
Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said, after the match, that Booth’s team-mates were to blame. Booth begged to differ.
‘‘Nah, I’ll take that on the chin,’’ Booth said.
Boyd reckoned the other Hurricanes hadn’t offered Booth enough protection. The halfback’s own view was there was a technical issue at play.
‘‘I’ll work on that today and tomorrow and Wednesday and sort it out for Friday.’’
Which would indicate Booth’s playing.
Whoever’s in the Hurricanes’ 23, they need to be better than they were against the Sharks.
There was a lack of care and accuracy about that performance and they were probably lucky to end up winning.
But better to be cranky and keen to improve after a victory, than the other way around.
‘‘There’s been a genuine dissatisfaction this morning. We’ve all been pretty grumpy in our own areas around a lot of things but, at the end of the day, the composure we showed in that last play especially, to come back and put some phases together and put them away was pretty satisfying,’’ said Holland.
And that’s the thing. It’s easy to say Booth wasn’t perfect or first five-eighth Ihaia West ought to have done this or done that. But Perenara and Beauden Barrett are so good and so experienced and so influential that most players will pale in comparison.
The fact is Booth and West got the team there in the end.
In West’s case, he was also involved in a fairly spectacular planned move, that ended in a try to fullback Jordie Barrett.
‘‘We’d had that one in the bank for a week or two and it’s good when they come off,’’ Holland said.
‘‘You have your little library [of moves] and you throw things at boys and say ‘look, I reckon this will go [well]’ and they might tweak it and between us we’ll come up with something.’’
None of which hurts the old internal bragging rights.
‘‘It’s good to be able to tell the forwards coaches ‘just keep getting us the ball’ because they’ll be straight into us when we’re not scoring [from] first phase,’’ said Holland.