Rugby: Hurricanes ready for big dance

The Hurricanes will come in for work tomorrow and try to prepare for another game like every other week except it will be anything but.

All season Chris Boyd and his side have tried to hammer the rhetoric that they will take the competition week by week.

Well, there's only one more week left in Super Rugby and next week's grand final against Highlanders is for all the marbles.

"I don't suspect we'll change anything actually," Boyd said of how they would prepare.
"We are just happy that we can go to the last dance and we do it in our own hall."

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Saturday night's final will be the biggest game in the history of the franchise.

The Hurricanes have never won a Super Rugby crown - they came close in 2006 but lost at the final hurdle against the Crusaders - and this week's match will mark the first time they've hosted the decider.

Conrad Smith, the longest-tenured Hurricane, who first played for the franchise in 2004 but missed that 2006 final due to a broken leg, said he had to put emotion aside last night as his side beat the Brumbies 29-9 in their semifinal in Wellington.

The veteran will head to France after this year's World Cup and last night's match could have been his last at the Cake Tin if the Hurricanes didn't prevail.

"There was a lot of that stuff, which made it easy to get up for but just hard to concentrate," he said. "I know if you focus on that stuff you don't always play well, so it was a matter of just making sure you think about what you're going to do in the game and doing your job and I think that's going to be the same case again next week."

Smith has seen crowds at the Cake Tin fluctuate during his 12 seasons with the Hurricanes but last night's sell-out was pleasing.

"It's brilliant to know we are going to have it again next week, it's pretty exciting."
It should be one heck of a dance.