Aisle be Back – Hurricanes return from their bye to play the Chiefs

• By Kevin McCarthy

Two weekends ago, in the aftermath of the Hurricanes victory over Highlanders, TJ Perenara seemed to say something to the effect that maybe the high -flying team might need to feel some adversity at some point.

Apologies to TJ if that’s not quite right as I’ve tried to check the comments and couldn’t find a reference to them elsewhere.

It’s by-the-by however – as it does raise one of those common things you hear said when a team is doing well.

That is, that success is best tempered by lessons learned in defeat. Of course, you mostly hear it after said defeat has occurred – bringing the winning streak to a screaming halt.

So, there is a logic of course. Suddenly a hot team may become complacent in its method and assumed that what works in the past will keep on working in the future . Secondly of course the opposition at this point may have worked out how to unravel your game plan.

In short it has become predictable.

All of the above can be true. But does that mean we should go around thinking –  hey let’s drop a game here – just so we can learn a few things. Probably not.

So really I think for a team like the Hurricanes – who let’s be clear have only played half a dozen matches and are just  halfway through the season – should be aiming to win every game. The probability of course of winning every game is low.

Indeed, you could look back at the recent history of teams who have won the so-called a minor premiership and question whether in fact it’s not a poisoned chalice.

Certainly, the Hurricanes in 2015, the chiefs in 2023 and the Blues in 2022 found a magnificent proceeding run through the league did not translate into a title.

Of course, the confounding factor there in two out of three of those cases was that they were facing the pre 2024 vintage crusaders, a team that specialised in winning titles on the road.

And yes, the Hurricanes sole title in 2016 was achieved by topping the table in the first place. Lest we forget.

If there is going to be a blip on trying to hit a perfect run this season then of course it looms on Saturday night in the capital against the chiefs.

No one should need reminding of last season when the chiefs were in town in a similar  round 8 hinge game. The Hurricanes played well for the first 40 minutes and really looked like they were on the way to win. Instead, the Chiefs adapted their game plan attacked ruthlessly through the forwards and clinically took control of the match to such a degree that the Canes were very well beaten by the by the close.

Based on that result you may well be worried that conditions on Saturday night – forecast to be certainly wet – will favour the Chiefs forwards. However, as you’ll be well aware, the Canes pack has been taking no backward steps this year to anyone.

Given this will be the match of the round, imagine my surprise that it is going out on free to air television. That of course is part of the deal this year whereby certain games are shown on the free Sky platform formerly known as Prime.

The logic seems to have been that free to air – albeit delayed – will help lift interest in the Super rugby competition overall.

What I’m betting on is that fair few thousand people will opt not to head to the stadium on Saturday but instead watch from home.

That will mean the home crowd will be smaller – something that will be obvious to those watching the TV screens. Now of course the glory days are never coming back for round robin matches where there would be very big crowds, but I’d like to know the thinking behind showing the marquee matches free to air.

On the face of it doesn’t actually seem to correlate with the much hyped talk of centring things around the fans.  Or building a picture of a thriving competition.