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Hurricanes welcome back World Cup stars for season-opening Super Rugby tour

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

The Hurricanes have named a squad of 27 players to travel to South Africa and Argentina for the start of the 2020 Super Rugby campaign.

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Headlining the abbreviated squad to take on the Stormers in Cape Town and Jaguares in Buenos Aires over the next fortnight are All Blacks stars TJ Perenara and Jordie Barrett.

Neither player has featured throughout pre-season as part of their extended break following last year’s World Cup in Japan.

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The duo – who were present at Onewa Domain for the Hurricanes’ 29-28 defeat to the Blues in Auckland on Friday – will be confined to just 40 and then 60 minutes of game time in the season’s opening two matches as part of the All Blacks’ rest program.

Their returns will nevertheless be welcomed by head coach Jason Holland, whose side will need Perenara’s and Barrett’s talents and experience after the Wellingtonians lost both of their pre-season fixtures to the Blues and Crusaders.

Perenara’s fellow co-captain Dane Coles hasn’t travelled with the squad, with hopes he’ll play in the round three clash against the Sharks at Sky Stadium on February 15.

The Hurricanes’ only other Kiwi World Cup representative, Ardie Savea, remains sidelined as he recovers from knee surgery which took place at the end of last year.

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Despite the absence of Coles and Savea, the Hurricanes will still have plenty of players with All Blacks experience at their disposal through the likes of Ngani Laumape, Vaea Fifita, Asafo Aumua, Tyrel Lomax and Gareth Evans.

The race to replace departed star Beauden Barrett has been narrowed down to specialist first-fives Fletcher Smith and Jackson Garden-Bachop, both of whom have been named to travel, unlike experienced playmaker James Marshall.

Additionally, second rower James Blackwell has also been included, even though he was seen sporting a moonboot in the wake of Friday’s loss to the Blues.

Holland has called upon a new name from outside of the original 38-man squad he named two months ago, with former Chiefs prop Tevita Mafileo, who has been training with the Blues over pre-season, drafted into the side.

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The 21-year-old is part of a five-man prop contingent that excludes full squad members Ben May and Xavier Numia, and he could join Super Rugby rookies Pouri Rakete-Stones and Devan Flanders in making his Hurricanes debut next Saturday when they face a strong Stormers outfit at Newlands.

The Cape Town-based club have a plethora of World Cup-winning Springboks in their ranks, including South African skipper Siya Kolisi and reigning World Rugby player of the year Pieter-Steph du Toit.

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Other members of the world champion Springboks squad plying their trade for the Stormers are Bongi Mbonambi, Steven Kitshoff, Herschel Jantjies and Damian Willemse, while veteran Wales and British and Irish Lions midfielder Jamie Roberts has also been recruited.

Subsequently, Holland is expecting a tough encounter to open the new campaign.

“As always, you can expect the game is going to be extremely physical,” he said.

“We know they will have a certain confidence this year too – but we’ve got a good side who have taken lessons from pre-season and are ready for what’s to come.”

The Hurricanes will travel to Argentina following their bout with the Stormers in preparation for their round two meeting with the Jaguares at Estadio Jose Amalfitani on February 8.

Hurricanes squad to face the Stormers and Jaguares

Forwards:

Fraser Armstrong, Tyrel Lomax, Tevita Mafileo, Pouri Rakete-Stones, Alex Fidow, Ricky Riccitelli, Asafo Aumua, James Blackwell, Isaia Walker-Leawere, Scott Scrafton, Du’Plessis Kirifi, Gareth Evans, Vaea Fifita, Devan Flanders, Reed Prinsep.

Backs:

TJ Perenara, Jamie Booth, Jackson Garden-Bachop, Fletcher Smith, Ngani Laumape, Billy Proctor, Vince Aso, Peter Umaga-Jensen, Wes Goosen, Ben Lam, Chase Tiatia, Jordie Barrett.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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