Another one bites the dust
Home, sweet home. Can anyone beat the Highlanders under the roof?
The error-ridden Hurricanes certainly couldn’t last night, going down 30-14 at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium, the Highlanders’ 12th straight scalp under the lid.
Not since the Crusaders knocked them over early last season have they lost at home, and their latest win landed a serious body blow to the Hurricanes’ chances of winning the New Zealand conference.
Outscoring the Hurricanes four tries to two in the teams’ final match before the June test window improved their record to 9-4 with 40 points, just five less than the second- placed men from the capital.
Those expecting a free-flowing game will be disappointed but it certainly had drama, no more so than late in the first half when a couple of scuffles broke out either side of a disallowed try to Hurricanes centre Jordie Barrett.
Everyone was fired up when Highlanders flanker Liam Squire’s swinging arm collected Hurricanes wing Julian Savea’s head.
Savea got up and appeared to throw a punch at Squire in the ruck, and should count his lucky stars there wasn’t a decent camera angle of the incident when TMO Aaron Paterson reviewed the incident.
So Squire was yellow carded, Savea survived, and they didn’t bother checking if Barrett’s try was legal.
For the record, multiple phases after the scuffle, Barrett, not long after it appeared as if he had suffered a serious knee injury, scooped up a loose ball and scampered under the posts. There was more drama to come. First another scuffle, then a ridiculous passage of play which ended with Highlanders wing Tevita Li scoring five minutes after the halftime hooter had sounded.
The Highlanders, with Squire in the bin, would have been forgiven for kicking the ball out and going to the sheds when Lima Sopoaga collected a ball inside his own 22.
But he fed wing Waisake Naholo and the Highlanders quickly found themselves peppering the Hurricanes’ line.
Following a quick tap, lock Jackson Hemopo flicked an inside ball to Li to score and the Highlanders, almost an hour after the game kicked off, had an 8-7 lead at the split.
That quickly became 13-7 after play resumed, when Highlanders cocaptain Ben Smith ghosted past Jordie Barrett and Gareth Evans, before feeding halfback Aaron Smith for the five-pointer. Their lead didn’t last long.
Nehe Milner-Skudder and Julian Savea caught the home side napping with a quick lineout, which ended with tighthead prop Jeff Toomaga- Allen storming over the line to give the Hurricanes a 14-13 lead, after Barrett’s conversion.
Back came the Highlanders, through prop Tyrel Lomax, who took a crisp Aaron Smith pass and dived over next to the posts.
The Hurricanes had 20 odd minutes to drag back the deficit but, as was the case last week against the Crusaders, their execution simply wasn’t up to scratch.
Their lineout (7/12) hindered them all night, and they were quite simply were outplayed by the home side, who played with black armbands to honour the death of head coach Aaron Mauger’s mum during the week.
They sealed the win 12 minutes from time, when Naholo outsprinted the Hurricanes’ cover defence and touched down out wide. The Southland Sharks have moved up to second in the National Basketball League with a win over the Taranaki Mountain Airs, but the race for the top four got tighter last night.
At ILT Stadium Southland in Invercargill, the Sharks were in dominant form as they dispatched the Airs 92-71.
Conor Morgan led the way for the Sharks with a 20-point, eightrebound performance, while Tom Vodanovich went for 17 with six boards, and Orlando Coleman had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Guard Jarrad Weeks had eight assists to go with his 11 points.
Import Javonte Douglas was the main man for the Airs, who trailed from start to finish, putting up a double-double of his own with 27 points and 19 rebounds.
The Sharks opened up an 11-point gap by the end of the first quarter, and the Airs could only reduce it by two in the second period. The hosts then blew the game open in the third spell, outscoring the visitors 29-13 to put the game to bed.
In the other game, the Hawke’s Bay Hawks accounted for the Canterbury Rams on the road, 91-76, to close the gap between them in fifth, and the Rams, who fell from third to fourth as a result of the loss.