Aisle be Back: Hurricanes v Highlanders tonight

Asafo Aumua slips the tackle of the late Connor Garden-Bachop when the two teams met on 1 June last year, with the Hurricanes winning 41-14 in Wellington. Aumua is on the bench tonight for his first game this season.

• By Kevin McCarthy

I could brag about picking the upset of the Chiefs last week – but this would mask that I didn’t pick the Moana Pasifika or Brumbies to do the same to the Hurricanes and the Blues, respectively.

Which in summary, means three of last year’s superpower  teams all were rolled.

We’ll talk about the Hurricanes in due course, but the last round surely underscores a shift in the competition. It is clearly more even, and much less predictable, which is ideal from the fan and marketing perspective.

Take your pick of possible reasons – one fewer team, only four Aussie sides so talent more concentrated, the two Pacific teams finding their feet, and an emphasis on speeding up the officiating and action.

Another one for the alarmist is that it confirms that New Zealand’s fabled edge in producing (or borrowing) talent is waning.  Personally I think that’s probably not so.

What to make of the Hurricanes – anchored to the foot of the table? Honestly, it hasn’t felt like they are playing terribly, or that injuries or a rookie first-five are the easy-to-reach excuses.

The hospital list is shortening, starting tonight, but you’d have hoped the rest of the squad was good enough to have held the line the meantime.

If there was some complacency that it was case of picking up from last year’s overall excellent performance, that surely should be well gone now.

Then again, the big shift last year was that the pack was largely able to best most opposition and set a big platform. That is not happening yet. And without last year’s centres combo of Jordie Barrett and Billy Proctor, there’s an air of instability there.

Yes, the team has to win tonight – as next week is a bye week.  But the fact that going to the Highlanders in Dunedin is no longer a smash-and-grab, shows you how much this competition is closing up.

The runway is also much less forgiving in an 11-team comp, with six playoff spots. Last year’s long, lingering death for the Crusaders’ isn’t how it will play out this year for teams that are off the pace. Still a quick death is a good death, so they say.

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A nerve wracking round in fantasy this week – with no DMAC playing, there was great variety of choices to make as replacement first -five kicker. I managed to pick Willie Havili as my kicker, and double bonus point scorer.

He then of course doesn’t get handed the kicking tee! Fortunately, our league leader made the same mistake.

No-one produced a DMAC performance, although Mr Beauden Barrett was looking good until that hand injury.

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There’s nothing scientific to it but I do enjoy invoking the curse of the marketeers on players.

The curse is that usually one of the three or so players used to front an advert for a major sponsor will then suffer some mishap – dropped, injured, or worse.

Sometimes  the curse afflicts the sponsor and a player – as in the spectacular work of Hello Fresh! Earlier this month, Caleb Clarke went zoomies illegally just as he was turning up on the nation’s TV doorsteps with a carton of kai.  Then in the last week, Hello Fresh got an extra serving – of legal action by the Commerce Commission.

Oops.

And the Hurricanes “Marvels” kit choice is possibly flirting with the curse. Captain America. Then again it could be inspired in a couple of weeks in the current hyper world.

At least Tesla aren’t a sponsor.

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The Hurricanes team to play the Highlanders tonight, kick-off 7.05pm, is:

1. Xavier Numia
2. Jacob Devery
3. Tevita Mafileo
4. Caleb Delany
5. Zach Gallagher (Debut)
6. Brad Shields (Co Captain)
7. Du’Plessis Kirifi (Co Captain)
8. Peter Lakai
9. Cam Roigard
10. Harry Godfrey
11. Kini Naholo
12. Peter Umaga-Jensen
13. Bailyn Sullivan
14. Ngatungane Punivai
15. Ruben Love

IMPACT

16. Asafo Aumua
17. Pouri Rakete-Stones
18. Tyrel Lomax
19. Isaia Walker-Leawere
20. Brayden Iose
21. Jordi Viljoen
22. Riley Hohepa
23. Fatafehi Fineanganofo