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TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett to notch up milestone game together

Beauden Barrett and TJ Perenara celebrating for the Hurricanes. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The Hurricanes inside back pairing of TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett will reach a special mark when they run on to face the Lions in the round 17 Super Rugby match at Ellis Park on Sunday (NZ time).

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The match will be the 100th time the pair have combined at halfback and first five-eighth for the Hurricanes since their first match together in 2012.

The pair, who have both played 123 times for the Hurricanes, have forged a formidable partnership in that time as Barrett has gone on to become the club’s leading points scorer (1223) of all time while Perenara has scored 52 tries, the most by any halfback in Super Rugby history.

Hurricanes head coach John Plumtree has made five changes to the starting XV from the one which defeated the Sharks 30-17 at Durban’s Kings Park last week.

With Matt Proctor (pectoral muscle) and Wes Goosen (hamstring) having returned to New Zealand to have their injuries assessed, Jordie Barrett moves into centre while Chase Tiatia will start on the wing.

Tiatia’s inclusion sees Ben Lam move to the right wing while the experienced James Marshall moves from the reserves to start at fullback.

Gareth Evans, who made a pleasing return from a long-term calf injury off the bench against the Sharks, starts at No 8 while Ardie Savea moves to the reserves with Du’Plessis Kirifi named at openside flanker.

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“Ardie has had a massive workload for us, even with his All Blacks rest weeks, so we think it’s really important that he gets an opportunity to freshen up a little and come off the bench for us,” Plumtree said.

The other change in the pack is at hooker where Ricky Riccitelli is named to start with club captain Dane Coles again to feature off the bench.

The Hurricanes need two competition points to guarantee themselves a home quarterfinal with the Lions and Blues still to play.

“We know how desperate the Lions will be,” Plumtree added. “They are still in the mix to also host a play-off match and we know how tough they can be to beat at home.”

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Hurricanes: James Marshall, Ben Lam, Jordie Barrett, Ngani Laumape, CHase Tiatia, Beauden Barrett, TJ Perenara (c), Gareth Evans, Du’Plessis Kirifi, Reed Prinsep, Isaia Walker-Leawere, James Blackwell, Jeff To’omaga Allen, Ricky Riccitelli, Toby Smith. Reserves: Dane Coles, Fraser Armstrong, Ross Geldenhuys, Liam Mitchell, Ardie Savea, Richard Judd, Peter Umaga-Jensen, Salesi Rayasi.

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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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TRENDING Everyone is saying the same thing after agonising England loss Everyone is saying the same thing after agonising England loss
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