Hurricanes v Chiefs Stat Attack

Julian Savea scored his ninth Super Rugby try against the Chiefs, which was also record breaking in other ways. See below for more.

• By Peter Marriott

The Hurricanes fell to the Chiefs 29-30 on Sunday. Some facts and figures from the game below.

Round 7 v Chiefs: Lost 29-30

The Hurricanes and Chiefs have now met on 41 occasions. The Hurricanes have won 21 of those matches to the Chief’s 18. There have been two drawn matches.

The Chiefs have won their last three matches against the Hurricanes to create a new record for successive victories. They have won two in a row on four occasions.

The Hurricanes have now lost eight matches by one point. The last time was also against the Chiefs: at Wellington on 23 April 2016 when the score was 28-27 to the visitors. On the other hand, the Hurricanes have won 11 matches by a single point including beating the Chiefs 32-31 at Wellington in the 2018 Quarter-Final.

Brendon Pickerill has been in charge of three of the five matches played so far this season by the Hurricanes. They have lost all three of them.

The Hurricanes fourth and final try brought up 1000 points against the Chiefs. The total now sits on 1005 and so far they are the only side to concede 1000 points to the Hurricanes. The next two teams in the Hurricanes sights are the Highlanders (955 points) and the Blues (954 points).

The Hurricanes have registered 29 points in a match on 24 occasions: more often than any other score. Next up are 25 points which they have scored 16 times.

Ruben Love started his first match at Fullback. He is the 22nd different player to have started in this position for the Hurricanes. It brought to an end a sequence of 23 consecutive starts at Fullback by Jordie Barrett.

Barrett started the match at Second five-eighth, just the second time he has done so in this position. The first occasion was against the Stormers at Wellington in March 2019 when he partnered Matt Proctor at Centre.

In this match against the Chiefs Barrett was partner to Proctor’s younger brother Billy and the two of them provided the 61st different Second five-eighth/Centre combination for the Hurricanes.

In their five matches played so far, the Hurricanes have used five different players who have started at Second five-eighth: Peter Umaga-Jensen, Julian Savea, Billy Proctor, Teihorangi Walden, and Jordie Barrett.

Ardie Savea played his 50th match at Westpac/Sky Stadium. His try was his 23rd in Super Rugby and third against the Chiefs. All three have been scored in Wellington: 2015, 2019 and 2022. It was Savea’s try which brought up 1000 points for the Hurricanes against the Chiefs.

Julian Savea’s try extended his Hurricanes record for most tries against the Chiefs to nine. He had previously touched down in 2012 (twice), 2014 (twice), 2015 (a penalty try), 2017 (once), and 2018 (twice including the Quarter-final match at Wellington).

Savea’s try also extended his Hurricanes record to 58 including two which were penalty tries awarded to him in 2013 (against the Blues at Wellington), and in 2015 (against the Chiefs at New Plymouth).

As well, Julian Savea’s try has the distinction of being the 500th to be scored for the Hurricanes in Super Rugby matches played at Westpac/Sky Stadium.

TJ Perenara scored his 57th try and moved one ahead of Christian Cullen and into second place on the Hurricanes all-time try-scoring list, just one behind Julian Savea. It was Perenara’s seventh try against the Chiefs.

Wes Goosen scored his 27th Super Rugby try and fifth against the Chiefs.

In the 37 Super Rugby Pacific matches played so far, a total of exactly 100 tries have been scored in the first half of those matches. Wes Goosen’s try was the 100th.

Josh Moorby came off the bench to play in his first match at a home venue.

Anton Lienert-Brown picked up his third try against the Hurricanes (he also scored in 2018 and 2019) whilst Kaylum Boshier’s was his first in Super Rugby.

It was also the 100th try scored by a Chiefs player in all matches against the Hurricanes.

Incidentally, Boshier’s older brother Lachlan is the Chiefs joint-record holder for most tries scored against the Hurricanes, with Bruce Reihana, both of whom scored five times.

Chase Tiatia scored the Chiefs final try, his seventh overall and second against the Hurricanes. He scored his first when the two sides last met in Wellington in March last year. Tiatia played 16 times for the Hurricanes in 2019-20 scoring three tries.