Why The Hurricanes Never Should Have Got Their Hands On The 2016 Super Rugby Trophy

Ladies and gentlemen, the Hurricanes are your 2016 Super Rugby Champions. Jamie Wall explains why that should come as a surprise.

It was fitting that the Hurricanes finally repaid their fans for years of anguish on the most Wellington night imaginable, in the wind and the rain and the freezing cold at Westpac Stadium. But the fact the conditions matched the name of the team is about the only thing that does fit about the Canes of 2016.

A team whose tagline for so many years was ‘expect the unexpected’ managed to do just that, pulling off their most unexpected season yet. Here’s why the Hurricanes shouldn’t have got anywhere near the Super Rugby title in 2016.

Who was in the midfield? Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu played a combined 252 games for the franchise and really should have won a title in that time, given that, you know, they were two of the greatest All Blacks ever. Their joint departure last season opened up a revolving door of Matt Proctor, Willis Halaholo, Pita Ahki, Vince Aso and Ngani Laumape (a league convert who hadn’t played rugby since college). This perceived weakness ended up being the cornerstone of their outstanding defensive effort in the playoffs.

The most potent attacking threats barely fired a shot. You’d have thought to have any kind of tilt at the title the Hurricanes would have needed a massive season from Savea, but by the end he was coming off the bench for Jason Woodward once each finals game was securely in the bag. Meanwhile Nehe Milner-Skudder’s season lasted all of one-and-a-half games.

They got absolutely destroyed in their first game. Cast your mind back to February 26th, when the new-look Hurricanes opened their season in Canberra with a record loss to the Brumbies. Their woeful performance drew the ire of noted motormouth Phil Kearns, who labelled them fat and unfit. It was hard to argue with him.

The New Zealand Conference. We’ve talked about the conference system and how it’s not supposed to be fair, so it was quite an achievement for the Canes to simply make the playoffs at all. Their dominant last round win over the Crusaders saw them skyrocket up the table and laid the foundations for their playoffs run.

The final really should have been in Johannesburg. Oh, Johan Ackermann. In what surely ranks retrospectively as the worst decision in the history of Super Rugby, the Lions coach dudded his team and fans by sending an understrength side to get beaten by Los Jaguares in Buenos Aires. The loss cost them top spot on the ladder and meant that instead of playing in front of 60,000 home fans on Ellis Park, they had to travel 12,000km to the windswept chamber of horror that is Westpac Stadium.

They had a bad kit. All the jerseys went a bit busy this year, but the Canes designers seemed to take their inspiration from a pair of painters’ overalls. However, they’re now immortalised as the most successful garb in team history, so they’ll be on for a comeback if Super Rugby ever does a retro round.

However, as soon as a shivering Dane Coles got his hands on the Super Rugby trophy, all of the above became a moot point. There’ll be no more jibes from the rest of New Zealand rugby fans about the sparseness of the Hurricanes’ trophy cabinet – you can’t argue with the first team to not concede a try in the entire playoffs.

They carried that determination through to the final, which could’ve easily ended up with a scoreline in single digits had it not been for two grubby tries off Lions mistakes. Given the fact that the Canes entire history has been typified by exciting, attacking rugby, this might be the greatest irony of all.