Hurricanes tear through Loftus

The Hurricanes got their South African tour off to the best possible start with a bonus-point 50-22 win over the Bulls in Pretoria.

The bonus point was secured within 22 minutes as the visitors came roaring out of the blocks, before two yellow cards late in the first half halted their momentum and allowed the Bulls back into the game, at least briefly.

The match was over nearly as soon as it had begun. The Hurricanes scored tries with almost metronomic rhythm every five minutes, ripping their hosts' lack-lustre tackling to shreds and offloading with elegant style.

The Bulls missed 23 tackles in the first half, 17 in the first 20 minutes. Indeed, they only really shored it up once both Conrad Smith and Jerry Collins had been sent to the bin. Even the flicker of fight that showed in the Bulls between minutes 23 and 30 was only against a team with 13 men.

The opening try came after five minutes, and already it had been on the cards. It was Ma'a Nonu who scored it, taking a simple switch off Jimmy Gopperth and accelerating through no less than five sets of flapping arms in exhilarating fashion to score under the posts.

Derick Hougaard replied with a penalty for offside, but on eleven minutes the visitors scored their second.

Delightful

It was probably the pick of the bunch, with some delightful soft hands among forwards and half-backs alike through three phases down the short side, before Piri Weepu expertly sent Gopperth through a gap with a perfectly-timed pass, and Gopperth offloading to Chris Masoe to dash for the corner. Gopperth converted from the touchline; such a try deserved nothing less.

On seventeen minutes Nonu again was the catalyst, this time slipping through a half-gap before popping the ball up for Smith. Smith was stopped short by Zane Kirchner, but somehow carried himself and Kirchner across the line before forcing the ball to ground.

The Bulls, already with nothing to lose, began to try and open the game up prematurely, but it backfired on them horribly when Bakkies Botha tried to spin a cut-out pass to JP Nel, and Nonu picked the ball off and hared away under the posts, dreadlocks trailing in his wake. Gopperth's conversion made it a staggering 28-3, four tries to nil, after just 22 minutes.

Nel administered a form of ammonia to the punch-drunk fans with a break of his own up the middle of the Hurricanes defence, and his pass was batted to ground by Smith who earned a yellow card for his efforts.

From that penalty there came a spell of heavy pressure on the Hurricanes line, which included five penalties, three driven mauls, two scrums, two balls held up over the line, one yellow card for Collins for killing the ball, one very fortunate Nonu after a nasty high tackle stopped Akona Ndungane scoring, and finally a try for Pierre Spies.

Hougaard converted, but Smith, and then Collins returned, and parity was restored until half-time, with the Hurricanes going in 28-10 to the good.

It got no better for the Bulls in the second half, with Derick Hougaard's restart going straight out, and Gopperth extended the Hurricanes' lead with a penalty after 51 minutes.

Subdued

The game became as subdued as the crowd in the second half. Fourie du Preez had an exciting break down the left, but Cory Jane did excellently to cover it.

Another Bulls attack could have culminated in a score, instead Kirchner's pass floated over the head of Ndungane and into touch.

Replacement hooker Hikawera Elliot was driven over from a line-out as the Bulls' discipline faltered again and they conceded good territory with a number of silly offences, and Shannon Paku went over two minutes later after Jane broke brilliantly from open play.

Jane himself slipped through a couple of tackles to bring up the seventh try, and Weepu's conversion brought up the 50. Van Heerden scored an utterly cosmetic try for the Bulls five minutes from the end, as did Jaco Engels, as both teams seemed to lose the intensity in contact.

The Hurricanes now hold a handy advantage over the log-jam of teams below second place in the Super 14 table, the Bulls hold nothing handy whatsoever. There will be some soul-searching on Loftus over the next few days.