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Reduced to 14 men for 20 minutes of the match the Hurricanes put up a huge defensive effort to record a nail-biting 19-14 win over the Waratahs in their Super 14 match at Aussie Stadium in Sydney on Saturday.
The victory means the Hurricanes will now host the semi-final next week, when the Waratahs will travel to Wellington.
Both teams will draw plenty from the second half of the match. The Waratahs will look very hard at how they failed to register more than the one try whilst playing against 14 men for that long, while enjoying 69 per cent of the possession and 76 per cent of the territory, and while wallowing in the luxury of a penalty count that was 11-2 in their favour during the half. The Hurricanes will look at it and commit every one of the successful tackles and counter-drives to memory, with the hope - if needed - of repeating every single one during next week's match. The defensive effort was just magnificent.
Of those eleven second-half penalties, nine were kicked to touch within ten metres of the Hurricanes line. another was scrummed within the same distance. Every time the Waratahs asked a question, the Hurricanes had an emphatic answer. Only once did the Waratahs find a way through, but the effort of doing so seemed to burn them out, and by the time the blue shirts got back into dangerous territory, it was too late.
The second half was where the Hurricanes sealed the win, but it was made in the first half by two cracking tries.
During a tentative opening, marked by witless kicks and a couple of extraordinary dropped catches by Peter Hewat and Jimmy Gopperth, the visitors set the game alight on seven minutes.
Jerry Collins slipped a ball inside to Ma'a Nonu, who produced a trademark burst and backward fend-off to make the game's first clean line-break. Tana Umaga and Isaia Toeava both ran perfect supporting lines, and Shannon Paku took a pass from the latter to go clear over in the corner for a 60m try. Gopperth hooked the conversion left.
Sam Norton-Knight - in for the suspended Wendell Sailor - produced the first Waratah action of any note a few minutes later, slicing open the Hurricanes defence after several more meandering kicks. But the young wing had the ball stolen from him in the tackle by Jason Eaton, whose presence in the line-out especially was sorely missed when he left to an ankle injury at the break. A nervous time is in prospect this week as Eaton fights for fitness.
Two more minutes of terrible kicking ensued, ended by Lote Tuqiri kicking a midfield ball out on the full. The Hurricanes won the line-out, Collins again played battering ram, and Umaga this time slipped through the gap. the supporting Neemia Tialata wasted no time in recycling the ball, and fed John Schwalger for a rare try which Gopperth converted.
The withdrawal of Sailor had cast a shadow over the Waratahs backs, who were - to coin a phrase - a shadow of their normal selves. There was no consistency or rhythm, no pace, and no gain in the kicking, from which the Hurricanes threatened with counter-running every time.
The best bet for a home try was to keep it tight and in hand, and with a half-hour elapsed, a try was born from just that tactic. Stephen Hoiles was first denied a try by the TMO, who ruled that Rodney So'oialo had managed to get body between ball and in-goal turf.
Then four phases went close range and to the right, before a long pass found Rocky Elsom left. Elsom rounded his man like a centre, before popping outside to Phil Waugh. Waugh skipped past Luke Andrews on the touchline - with a cigarette paper separating Waugh's boot from the chalk - and dived into the corner.
Hewat's excellent conversion brought the hosts back to 7-12, but when both he and Chris Whitaker dallied over a routine touchline kick just before the break, Chris Masoe charged it down and Gopperth - who had hitherto seemed unable to hold onto his own hands never mind the ball - held on to the bouncing ball that counted, and converted the try for a 19-7 half-time lead.
The hosts spent fully fifteen minutes of the third quarter in their opponents' 22. So'oialo twice, and Schwalger both conceded pressure penalties 5m from their line, shortly after Nonu had been penalised for a vicious high tackle for which a citing may yet come.
Referee Craig Joubert held his temper, but lost it when Andrew Hore collapsed a maul, and sent the hooker to the bin. Every one of the five penalties went to the corner, every one of the line-outs was cleanly caught by either Dan Vickerman or Alex Kanaar, but still the Hurricanes clung on. After Hore was dispatched, Andrews stole the line-out, and the ball was cleared.
The pattern repeated itself time and time again. Penalty, line-out, Waratahs catch and maul, penalty. It sounds like a gilt-edged case for a penalty try, but in truth, the Waratahs never quite got close enough to the line to take things that far. Joubert issued another card warning after penalty number nine, and duly flourished when Piri Weepu high-tackled Brett Sheahan, but by that time, the ball had travelled backwards to some 15m from the line. Weepu was the least guilty of all the transgressors - So'oialo had conceded four penalties prior to that moment, but the scrum-half was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Finally, with Weepu off, the Waratahs scored. The backs, incapable of making positive yards nearly all game, ran a simple miss-and-loop move which saw Norton-Knight clean through. Finally the hosts were within a score - Hewat making it 14-19.
There was a lot of huff and puff, and the tension thickened the air significantly as the home team plugged away, but mistakes kept them at bay. Tatafu Polota-Nau lost the ball in contact after getting onto an inside ball from Tuqiri, and Daniel Halangahu's break and burst was similarly undone by a knock-on from Benn Robinson.
Sheahan also knocked on, once as he prepared to send a team-mate through on a burst, and then in the final minute, his own snipe was undone by slippery hands as he sought to bring the ball back over his own shoulder. That was the final chance, as from the scrum Brendan Haami booted the ball to touch, taking the teams back to Wellington for the semi-final next week.
Man of the match: Few Waratahs stood out, but there were excellent performances from Dan Vickerman and Al Kanaar at lock. The Man of the match should be a Hurricane though. Any of the all-tackling back-row were in the frame, as were the two energetic props, but the stand-out performer was Ma'a Nonu, whose three clean breaks might have yielded more than just the one try on other days. A superb centre's performance.
The scorers:
For the Waratahs:
Tries: Waugh, Norton-Knight
Cons: Hewat 2
For the Hurricanes:
Tries: Paku, Schwalger, Gopperth
Cons: Gopperth 2
Yellow cards: Andrew Hore (Hurricanes, 50), Piri Weepu (Hurricanes, 62)
Teams:
Waratahs: 15 Peter Hewat, 14 Wendell Sailor, 13 Morgan Turinui, 12 Sam Norton-Knight, 11 Lote Tuqiri, 10 Mat Rogers, 9 Chris Whitaker (captain), 8 Stephen Hoiles, 7 Phil Waugh (vice-captain), 6 Rocky Elsom, 5 Daniel Vickerman, 4 Alex Kanaar, 3 Al Baxter, 2 Adam Freier, 1 Benn Robinson.
Replacements: 16 Tatafu Polota-Nau, 17 Matt Dunning, 18 Will Caldwell, 19 David Lyons, 20 Brett Sheehan, 21 Daniel Halangahu, 22 Shaun Berne.
Hurricanes: 15 Isaia Toeava, 14 Lome Fa'atau, 13 Ma'a Nonu, 12 Tana Umaga, 11 Shannon Paku, 10 Jimmy Gopperth, 9 Piri Weepu, 8 Rodney So'oialo (captain), 7 Chris Masoe, 6 Jerry Collins, 5 Jason Eaton, 4 Luke Andrews, 3 Neemia Tialata, 2 Andrew Hore, 1 John Schwalger.
Replacements: 16 Luke Mahoney, 17 Joe McDonnell, 18 Ross Kennedy, 19 Thomas Waldrom, 20 Brendan Haami, 21 Lifeimi Mafi, 22 Tamati Ellison
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Touch judges: Marius Jonker (South Africa), Stuart Dickinson (Australia)
Television match official: Paul Marks (Australia)
Assessor: Mick Keogh (Australia), Greg West (Australia)
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