Rugby: Hurricanes' hopes disappear in the fog

There were shades of the 2006 gorillas in the mist final in the closing stages of last night's Super 14 thriller in Hamilton, but the fog that blanketed Waikato Stadium - obscuring a final desperate Hurricanes assault on the Chiefs' line - didn't bother Ian Foster one bit.

"It was better not being able to see it, to be honest," Foster said.

"We were just listening for the whistle. It certainly added to the drama."

The view from the main stand was pretty much non-existent by the end but fullback Mils Muliaina, who scored the decisive try early in the second half after a sweeping 80m breakout, said his view wasn't much better.

"She was pretty nerve-racking stuff. I couldn't see anything either. It wasn't until I saw guys jumping up and down that I knew something had gone wrong."

What went wrong was a Jason Eaton fumble as he peeled off the back of a ruck 5m from the Chiefs' line.

Halfback Toby Morland, one of three Chiefs to step admirably into the shoes of a more illustrious injured team-mate, was close to the action.

"I was just running around like a mad [person] really," he said.

"I was behind the ruck thinking, **** somebody's got to do something here.

"They were edging closer and closer but the adrenaline in the boys looked awesome. We were just smashing them. I didn't see the knock-on, I just saw the ref with his arm out."

The Hurricanes were left to rue an approach that relied heavily on kicking for a territorial advantage that never came.

"We tried to play the territory game and then build but we just seemed to lose the ball at crucial times," Hurricanes' coach Colin Cooper said.

"My gut tells me that we had good composure and we got in good positions but just didn't capitalise on it. I thought we were right in the game right to the end but we weren't good enough in the end."