Rugby: Hurricanes could rest All Blacks as conference leaders make trip to Eden Park

Name: Rugby: Chiefs let down by 'very poor error'
Uploaded: 2015-05-17T14:08:32+12:00
Duration: 222 s
Description: Relief will be washing through the Hurricanes. This wasn't a vintage performance and their 22-18 victory over the Chiefs at Westpac Stadium in Wellington last night will be one they might look back on and feel lucky to have escaped with the points. But the flipside to that argument is that this was another gritty win that shows how far this team has come when the heat goes on.

NZME.

17 May, 2015 05:00 PM3 mins to read

Relief will be washing through the Hurricanes. This wasn't a vintage performance and their 22-18 victory over the Chiefs at Westpac Stadium in Wellington last night will be one they might look back on and feel lucky to have escaped with the points. But the flipside to that argument is that this was another gritty win that shows how far this team has come when the heat goes on.

A trip to the fortress awaits.

The Blues are in tatters off the field and have a terrible record away from home but when you set up a game for them at Eden Park they generally find a way to win.

The Bulls, Force and Brumbies have all fallen to the Blues on their home patch in 2015 and that is the next game on the agenda for the Hurricanes, who will travel to Auckland for a Saturday night showdown with John Kirwan's side.

"Certainly, the three games they've had at Eden Park this year, they've won; I know they consider that a fortress," Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said of the Blues.

"I think they're chock-full of dangerous individuals, and that's absolutely not a game that we are going to take lightly."

But it is a game where the Hurricanes may choose to rest some of their All Blacks who still need a week off, namely Conrad Smith (head knock) and Ben Franks (Achilles), who both suffered bumps during the Hurricanes' 22-18 win over the Chiefs in Wellington last Saturday night.

"We'll rest people by need," Boyd said. "We might make some changes to freshen some people up but there'd be no way we'd be going to Eden Park and expect it to be a lay down misere."

Smith's knock wasn't thought to be serious but he will be tested this week and Boyd said they wouldn't take any risks with their captain.

The Hurricanes have moved 13 points clear at the top of the New Zealand conference and, with four weeks to go, the prospect of finishing at the top of the overall standings has become a reality.

"We've got ourselves in a position now where we've got to nail this off and get ourselves into a home semifinal position," Boyd said.

Winning two of their final four games would take any mathematical equations out of the argument and would put the Hurricanes in pole position for the finals.

Their run to the playoffs is a tough one, though. After their trip to Auckland to meet the Blues this weekend, they will play the Crusaders in Nelson and the Highlanders in Napier before rounding out their campaign with a journey to New Plymouth to play the Chiefs.

That match with the Chiefs promises to have plenty of feeling involved given the close nature of their contest on Saturday. It was a game that included a handful of contestable decisions from the officials.

Both teams had tries ruled out that could have swung the result with Chiefs coach Dave Rennie left feeling particularly aggrieved that Augustine Pulu had a late effort waved off.

Boyd acknowledged it was a tight game that could have gone either way.

"It's impossible to referee rugby perfectly; it's not possible, because there's the law and then there's the interpretation of the law and the impact that that has on the game. So, it's massively complex."