There’s an old rugby adage that the forwards decide who wins the game and the backs by how much. I guess last night was the exception that proves the rule. The Force pack were on top for most of the game, but it was the Hurricanes backs who really settled the issue. They proved another old rugby saw: the ball beats the man. And how.
Whilst the Force pack got stuck in at the breakdown, put some big shunts on in the scrum and secured plenty of possession, it was the handling and support play of the Canes that was the deciding factor. But more on that later.
The Result
Hurricanes 46 (Perenara 3, Taylor, Eaton; Ngatai tries, Barrett 3, Kirkpatrick 2 convs; Barrett, Kirkpatrick pens) beat Force 19 (Hodgson try; Stannard conv; Stannard 4 pens) Attendance: 15,768 Ref: Jaco Peyper
The Damage
Nalaga went off at half time with an unspecified leg injury and Cummins in the second half with a calf. It’s not known at this stage how serious these injuries are. Sharpie looked to be struggling by the end of the game with shoulder and chest knocks, but he played it out and poor old Matt Hodgson got his bell absolutely rung late in the game by a wonderful front on hit from a Canes player whose number I couldn’t see.
The Canes appeared to come out of the game relatively unscathed.
The Moment
For me the moment of the match was when Andre Taylor scored right on half time. An errant kick up field and the Hurricanes pounced, running the ball back towards a lazy chase from the Force and Taylor hit the jets and scored in the corner. Barrett converted and all of a sudden after the game being pretty tight you could see that it deflated the Force a bit. They were having to work so hard to score any points at all and every time the Canes had some ball on the counter attack they went over. The second half was an avalanche by comparison.
The Man
You could name pretty much any one of the Hurricanes backs, but you’d be hard pressed not to pick the Canes half back, Perenara. He was in everything good about their attacking play last night and scored three big meat pies himself. The Canes midfield were also outstanding, especially the experienced Conrad Smith. Cory Jane injected himself into the game at critical moments too, especially linking up with his support players when returning downfield kicks
For the Force, Hodgson I thought was their best, with Charles and Lynn also having strong games.
The Talking Point
It has to be the handling and support play of the Canes backs and conversely the lack of attacking nous of the Force. If you were a neutral observer (and frankly even if you weren’t), you’d have to marvel at the quality of the handling, passing and support from depth that the Canes put on display. It was actually beautiful to watch in many respects. For about 60 minutes they were surviving on scraps, but they were extremely efficient with what ball they did get. Good counter attacking teams are hard to contain and everything these guys touched last night turned to gold. They run great lines and had blokes continually on the shoulder of the ball runner ready to support. They also passed the ball out in front of the men outside them and gave them a chance to hit the ball at pace.
The contrast with the Force backs couldn’t have been more striking. They had a surfeit of possession, but unfortunately didn’t pose enough questions to the defence. A couple of times Stannard tried some inside ball to Cummins or Shepherd cutting back on an angle, but the Canes were a bit too canny for that. The other issue was the kicking from hand. Against a team who likes to run the ball back, your kicking game has to be spot on and the ball ought to go out the majority of the time, with an aggressive chase. That didn’t happen last night and the results were there to see. The home team were outsmarted by a slick and skilful outfit and will have some thinking to do in the next couple of weeks about how they plan to unlock opposition defences. The pack are playing well and did last night what I thought they would: narrow channel, punch it in close and get over the gain line. Unfortunately, it’s hard to ruck, pick and drive your way to the try line.
The Haiku
Canes run, pass and counter
Force had no answer
Canes were too classy
