The Hurricanes have been forced to dig deep in the second half for a 31-23 win over the Western Force<\/p>\n
The Force threatened to smash a 12-year hoodoo with a first victory over Kiwi opposition in New Zealand in more than a decade before the Hurricanes stormed home on Friday night.<\/p>\n
From a six-point deficit early in the second half, the Hurricanes piled on four quickfire tries to run away with the match at Napier’s McLean Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After winning just two of their past 26 games across the Tasman since 2014, both against Moana Pasifika, the Force enjoyed a shock 8-5 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
A 27th-minute try to winger Darby Lancaster and Ben Donaldson’s penalty goal trumped the Hurricanes’ only first-half five-pointer to livewire scrumhalf Cam Roigard.<\/p>\n
It came after relentless pressure from the Hurricanes led to nothing amid some fierce defence from the visitors.<\/p>\n
Donaldson extended the Force’s advantage with a second penalty shortly after the break.<\/p>\n
But the match quickly turned after Hurricanes flanker Brad Shields crashed over in the 48th minute to open the floodgates.<\/p>\n
Further tries to No.8 Devan Flanders, flyhalf Callum Harkin and replacement lock Warner Dearns sealed the Force’s fate and consigned the Perth franchise to a fourth loss from five outings to start the season.<\/p>\n
Dearns’ try was the pick of the lot, charging down Donaldson’s kick and racing away with the hosts down a man following Isaia Walker-Leawere’s yellow card for a high cleanout.<\/p>\n
Late tries to Lancaster and Lopeti Faifua were not enough for the Force to snatch a bonus point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first 20 in the second half we got punched in the face a bit. Really great reply in the end. But only if there was five more minutes,” Force captain Jeremy Williams lameted post-match.<\/p>\n
Hurricanes 31\u00a0(Tries:\u00a0Roigard, Shields, Flanders, Harkin, Dearns; Cons: Barrett 3)\u00a0def Western Force 23\u00a0(Tries: Lancaster 2, Faifua; Cons: Donaldson; Pens: Donaldson 2)<\/p>\n
Teams<\/p>\n
Hurricanes:\u00a015 Josh Moorby, 14 Bailyn Sullivan, 13 Jone Rova, 12 Jordie Barrett (co-captain), 11 Fehi Fineanganofo, 10 Callum Harkin, 9 Cam Roigard, 8 Devan Flanders, 7 Du\u2019Plessis Kirifi (co-captain), 6 Brad Shields, 5 Isaia Walker-Leawere, 4 Caleb Delany, 3 Pasilio Tosi, 2 Jacob Devery, 1 Pouri Rakete-Stones,
\n\tReplacements:\u00a016 Asafo Aumua, 17 Xavier Numia, 18 Tyrel Lomax, 19 Warner Dearns, 20 Brayden Iose, 21 Jordi Viljoen, 22 Ruben Love, 23 Riley Higgins<\/p>\n
Western Force:\u00a015 Max Burey, 14 Darby Lancaster, 13 George Bridge, 12 Kurtley Beale, 11 Bayley Kuenzle, 10 Ben Donaldson, 9 Henry Robertson, 8 Nick Champion de Crespigny, 7 Carlo Tizzano, 6 Will Harris, 5 Darcy Swain, 4 Jeremy Williams (captain), 3 Harry Johnson-Holmes, 2 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 1 Tom Robertson
\n\tReplacements:\u00a016 Nic Dolly, 17 Marley Pearce, 18 Misinale Epenisa, 19 Franco Molina, 20 Lopeti Faifua, 21 Nathan Hastie, 22 Taj Annan, 23 Hamish Stewart<\/p>\n
Referee:\u00a0Todd Petrie
\n\tAssistant referees:\u00a0Fraser Hannon, Ben Woolerton
\n\tTMO:\u00a0Glenn Newman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hurricanes have been forced to dig deep in the second half for a 31-23 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-537506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}