Goodes and Hurricanes preparing for blockbuster Super Rugby season

Above: The Hurricanes celebrating a try and Goodes in the loose against the Blues last season.

It’s the time of the year when the country’s Super Rugby players are putting the finishing touches on their preparations for the start of another blockbuster season that moves into pre-season phase next week.

Reports are that the Hurricanes have been training the house down this summer and they’re as fit as ever at this time of the year and raring to get stuck in and defend their title. The All Blacks officially join the group next week and their opening pre-season match is against the Blues in Auckland next Saturday. They then play in the inaugural Brisbane Tens on 10/11 February and meet the Crusaders in Waverley on 17 February.

Speaking on behalf of the Hurricanes, loosehead prop Reggie Goodes is upbeat.

“Like every year, it’s been a long pre-season and everyone’s excited to start playing,” he said. “We all know as soon as the games start we run a bit less conditioning wise!”

Being the defending champions is a pretty good way to start the season, but they’re not getting ahead of themselves. Particularly after their slow start in 2016 that saw them lose pre-season matches to the Blues and the Crusaders and then lose 10-52 to the Brumbies in round one.

“We’ve talked about wanting to build on the last three games last year and to not take a backwards step from the level we reached at the end of 2016, we want to be moving forward straightaway,” 62-game Super Rugby prop Goodes said.

Goodes joked that material reminders of their title win have been infrequent of late as the trophy itself has been squirreled away. “We’ve seen a fair bit of it previously, but I think it’s underneath [coach] Body’s bed at the moment.”

Goodes will be more motivated than most for the Hurricanes to go back-to-back as he took a head knock in their match last July against the Crusaders and missed the three playoff wins at Westpac Stadium against the Sharks, Chiefs and Lions.

Goodes and the propping personnel are preparing well for the year. “We’ve got a lot of depth in the front row and everyone’s training hard. Jeff Toomaga-Allen is a beast at the moment, he’s looking fit, while young guys like Alex Fidow and Joe ‘Apikotoa are learning heaps.”

Last year Goodes came back from his spell on the sideline to score two tries for the Wellington Lions against Bay of Plenty. Post-NPC season, Hurricanes Goodes, Brad Shields and Michael Fatialofa played for the Barbarians in European internationals, including in a 31-31 draw against South Africa.

“That was an awesome experience. I was born in South Africa so it was special to play for the Barbarians against the Springboks front of a full house at Wembley. All week leading up to the game was great and we had a catch-up with them beforehand.”

As is tradition, the Barbarians wore their club socks. “I wore the Poneke socks with pride, while Brad wore one Petone sock and one Stokes Valley sock, reflecting his senior and junior clubs.”

A highlight of this year’s calendar is the British and Irish Lions tour. There are two Lions matches in Wellington, against the Hurricanes on Wednesday 27 June and the second Test on Saturday 1 July.

“At the moment all the focus is on the start of the Super Rugby season and the first game against the Sunwolves on 25 February,” Goodes explained. “But as it gets closer we’ll address it - it would be an honour to play against the Lions.”

At the start of this year World Rugby introduced new dangerous tackle guidelines in a bid to reduce concussion and brain injuries. Have these been widely discussed?

“We never want to aim that high anyway so it’s about getting our technique right and if it’s a safety thing we’re all for it. For us and all the other teams it’ll just be about adapting.”

At the club level, Goodes is hoping that Poneke can do well in the Jubilee Cup this year.

“Last year I played one game for Poneke and that was against Whetu Henry and Ories and was tough work.

‘When I first started at Poneke in 2010 we made the Jubilee Cup final, but after that we were knocked off for a few years. It was heartening to see the team rebuild last year and hopefully take it out this year and make [Hurricanes technical advisor and Poneke stalwart Richard Watt] Watty proud as well.”

Expect Reggie Goodes to have another big year in all teams he plays for in 2017.

2017 Hurricanes and British and Irish Lions tour coverage on Club Rugby is in association with Les Mills