Canes turn to AFL in bid to kick on
Get used to the Beauden Barrett to Jordie Barrett crosskick.
Already a useful weapon, as evidenced by the Beauden Barrett kick brother Jordie turned into a try for the All Blacks against Italy, the Hurricanes hope to make the tactic even more lethal.
Super Rugby coaches embark on ‘‘professional development’’ trips every year. The idea’s worthy enough, but the reality can be rather different.
Hurricanes assistant coach Jason Holland has been to outfits as diverse as Cirque du Soleil’s Montreal headquarters in his time. But for 2019, he’s confident he’s gathered something from the Melbourne Demons AFL club to make the Hurricanes a good ‘‘10 per cent better.’’ In a game of fine margins, that’s quite a bit.
The Hurricanes forwards were charged with stiffening up their scrum and lineout work, when their Super Rugby pre-season commenced this week.
While the forwards are expected to huff and puff their way through some serious setpiece work, the backs have more AFL-inspired assignments.
‘‘You can make them really worthwhile. You’ve got to make sure you don’t just do it for the sake of doing it, but if you can find something you think is easily transferable it’s great stuff,’’ Holland said of off-season trips.
‘‘I look at some of some of our kicking and catching and our chasing of some of our contestable kicks, and if we can get 10 per cent more out of our outside backs catching more of those it’s a big swing in our game, so I put a bit of importance on it.’’
Holland is sold on the idea that a wee nugget can make a big difference to a team’s performance.
‘‘Heck, yeah. It’s just about where you go to find them and who’s going to get you stuff that’s transferable to rugby, if you go to other sports. Gee, they can be gold, even if it’s just different focus points for the boys around some sort of skills rather than hearing my voice and my philosophy on it.’’
The Hurricanes’ kicking game was a bit hit and miss this year. Beauden Barrett often went for quite shallow kicks near the 22, which his outside backs battled to contest – let alone win back – giving the opposition turnover ball in a dangerous area.
Since then we’ve seen the All Blacks ask him to play a bit more field position, with varying results.
But, if the try Beauden Barrett help lay on for his brother in Rome is anything to go by, kicking could become an important part of the Hurricanes’ arsenal.