'Na, never. Not even at under 8s': Blues hooker's historic night out
Blues hooker Kurt Eklund was the beneficiary of the firing maul, scoring a hat-trick in the 46-16 win over Moana Pasifika at Eden Park.
The rolling maul has been a weapon for both the Blues and Moana Pasifika over their two game stretch, with Blues hooker Ricci Riccitelli scoring two tries on Tuesday night while lock Luke Romano added one more in the first win. Moana Pasifika staged their fightback with two rolling maul tries on their own in the first loss.
The Blues continued that trend on Saturday night, and Eklund admitted it was his first ever game that he had scored three tries in.
“Na, never. Not even at under 8s. Bloody hell. Full credit to the boys, eh?” he said.
“It’s cool, man. Awesome, eh? Luckily, as Leon alluded to before, it’s been a pretty special night. First game back here at Eden Park with a crowd in front of all our family
and friends, the haka, against Moana Pasifika.
“As he said before, a lot of our friends are in there too. Been a really cool evening and to get a bit of meat from the boys’ hard work, you’ve gotta take it.
The amount of tries that hookers are scoring has increased as teams rely on the rolling maul more frequently. Eklund explained that they plan for the situation regularly but due to having two games in close proximity this week there was less contact.
“Mr Coventry loves it, eh? We’ll be in there a couple times a week at least, banging each other up. Been an interesting week this week though. Obviously with the game mid-
week so they’ve taken the physicality out of our trainings a little bit so we weren’t banging bodies but we were making sure we were getting into the right places and things like that,” he said.
“Like I said before, I’m just lucky to hang on the back of all the boys’ hard work. They drag me over the line and I get the pats on the back so I’ll take it.”
When asked how hard are they to defend, Eklund said ‘you have to have your wits about you’ in order to stop it as they are ‘hard to stop’.
“We’re lucky that that one got called back. They’re pretty fickle with the boys getting in front and there are cameras everywhere now. You gotta get it right but if the boys have
their tails up, they’re hard to stop.
“Some teams out there are pretty good at it so you’ve gotta have your wits about you both sides.”
Head coach Leon MacDonald stopped short of calling hookers the new wingers for their try scoring feats, but credited the success of the maul to the side’s discipline to earn penalties to get those opportunities from five out.
“I think discipline… That points to discipline. We’ve worked really hard on our discipline and we were disappointed at the start of the game we weren’t squeaky clean but if you
control the ball and you attack space and you get defence under pressure, you generally get rewarded with penalties and that allows you to go to your maul.
“I thought our maul was patient. We worked hard and we kept it on them and we put a lot of pressure on them. They got over the line as well so it’s a tough part of the game to defend.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Beautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
4 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to comments