Hurricanes beat Chiefs to book home Super Rugby final

The Hurricanes beat the Chiefs 25-9 at Westpac Stadium to book a second consecutive home Super Rugby final next week in Wellington.

The Hurricanes outscored the Chiefs by three tries to none in the match with Beauden Barrett scoring a try, two penalties and two conversions for a total of 15 points.

The Hurricanes have now gone through over 200 minutes without conceding a try.

Next week the Hurricanes will play the winner of the second Semi-final between the Lions and the Highlanders in Johannesburg South Africa.

Whoever wins in Johannesburg will have to travel to New Zealand for the match which effectively gives the Hurricanes two extra days of preparation.

Staunch rush defence and some brilliance from Barrett set up the victory for the Hurricanes.

With home ground advantage against a Chiefs side playing away for the fourth consecutive week Willis Halaholo and Victor Vito also scored tries for the Hurricanes who led 15-6 at half-time.

The Chiefs, who spent 12 minutes inside the ‘Canes 22 were unable to cross the line and were forced to rely on three Damian McKenzie penalties for their points.

The Hurricanes had sweated all week on the fitness of Dane Coles and waited until 40 minutes from kick off before announcing their influential captain had lost his battle to start after suffering a rib injury last week.

But scrum-half TJ Perenara stepped up to play an influential role in commanding a side that spent much of the game defending and had Barrett in sublime form to make the most of their attacking opportunities.

The focal point before the game was the 9-10 all All Blacks battle which was won by Perenara and Barrett over Tawera Kerr-Barlow and Aaron Cruden.

The pattern was set with the opening try in the sixth minute when Kerr-Barlow lost the ball in a Perenara tackle.

Barrett mounted a counter attack from near his own 22, recovered his chip kick and when brought down close to the line he flicked to ball to Halaholo for the try.

The Chiefs had a strong period in the middle of the first half when they camped on the Hurricanes line and had multiple opportunities to stamp their mark on the game.

Instead their desire to turn down kickable penalties for possible lineout tries went unrewarded and Perenara knew that was the telling point in the game.

“Defending for about 15 minutes in the first half set the standard for us,” he said.

“They threw a lot at us and for our boys to be able to step up and make some tackles helped us. It’s something we pride ourselves on, defence.”

The Hurricanes grim determination to hold out the Chiefs was rewarded when Barrett intercepted a Sam Cane pass and raced nearly 70 metres to score to relieve the pressure.

The Chiefs created several opportunities to score tries in the final quarter but handling let them down each time.

Final Score Hurricanes 25 (15) Chiefs 9 (6)

Scorers

Hurricanes
Tries – W.Halaholo, B.Barrett, V.Vito
Pen – B.Barrett 2
Con – B.Barrett 2
Drop –
Cards – C.Jane (62nd min yellow)

Chiefs
Tries –
Pen – D.McKenzie 3
Con –
Drop –
Cards –

Attendance : 25,600

Match Officials
Referee: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Assistant Ref 1:Glen Jackson
Assistant Ref 2:Paul Williams
TMO :Ben Skeen

Teams

Hurricanes

15 James Marshall , 14 Cory Jane , 13 Matt Proctor , 12 Willis Halaholo , 11 Jason Woodward , 10 Beauden Barrett , 9 TJ Perenara (c) , 8 Victor Vito (vc), 7 Ardie Savea , 6 Brad Shields , 5 Michael Fatialofa , 4 Vaea Fifita , 3 Ben May , 2 Ricky Riccitelli , 1 Loni Uhila

Replacements: Leni Apisai, Chris Eves, Mike Kainga, Mark Abbott, Tony Lamborn , Jamison Gibson Park, Vince Aso, Julian Savea.

Chiefs

1. Kane Hames , 2. Nathan Harris , 3. Atu Moli , 4. Dominic Bird , 5. Brodie Retallick , 6. Taleni Seu , 7. Sam Cane (cc) , 8. Tom Sanders, 9. Tawera Kerr-Barlow , 10. Aaron Cruden (cc) , 11. James Lowe, 12. Anton Lienert-Brown , 13. Seta Tamanivalu , 14. Sam McNicol, 15. Damian McKenzie

Replacements : 16. Hika Elliot , 17. Siegfried Fisi’ihoi, 18. Mitchell Graham, 19. Lachlan Boshier, 20. Michael Leitch, 21. Brad Weber , 22. Toni Pulu , 23. Shaun Stevenson