KEY POINTS:
Highlanders 8 Western Force 7
The Highlanders opened their Super 14 rugby campaign by sweating out a 8-7 win against the Western Force in Perth's blistering heat last night.
Last year's wooden-spooners, the Western Force went into the match at Subiaco Oval with high hopes after going close to upsetting the Highlanders in Dunedin's cooler climate and bolstering their ranks with expensive off-season recruits like Matt Giteau, Ryan Cross and Drew Mitchell.
The Western Force led through a try by first five-eighth James Hilgendorf scored a try, converted by Cameron Shepherd, that cancelled out an early penalty from Callum Bruce.
But the Highlanders bounced back before halftime with a try by skipper Josh Blackie, before mounting an impressive defensive display in the scoreless second half.
With the temperature hovering around 30degC, neither team generated much flow and made too many handling errors.
The Highlanders, already missing All Blacks Carl Hayman and Anton Oliver, and playmaker Nick Evans through a knee injury, also lost prop Clarke Dermody when he was yellow-carded after 20 minutes for taking a swipe at Matt Henjak on the floor.
But Highlanders coach Greg Cooper had more to be satisfied about than his Force counterpart John Mitchell, who is likely to be without Hilgendorf against the Stormers next week after he injured his groin last night.
"In attack we didn't control the ball well enough ... it was a night when attack was pretty ugly for both sides, and a lot of it was our own doing," Mitchell said.
After Scott Staniforth bounced off opposite number Lucky Mulipola with a crunching hit, forcing the Highlanders winger to stagger off, a gaping hole was left in the visitors' defence.
On the next phase, Hilgendorf ploughed through the still unplugged hole to score in the 14th minute.
But even with a man advantage, the Force looked like a team which had not played together before.
A mix-up with Henjak, which allowed an innocuous kick to bounce into touch, proved very costly, as from the resultant clearance the Highlanders worked the far side, and Blackie plunged over.
Hilgendorf's injury forced a reshuffle, with Giteau moving to the five eighth position many thought he should have started at.
With the star recruit seeing more of the ball in the second half, the Force strung more phases together, but it was all to no avail against the resolute Highlanders defence.
Having withstood the pressure, the Highlanders went close to extending their narrow lead when Craig Newby denied a rollover try by the TMO in the dying minutes.
Scorers:-
Highlanders 8 (Josh Blackie try, Callum Bruce penalty), Western Force 7 (James Hilgendorf try, Cameron Shepherd penalty).
- NZPA
