Aisle Be Back: Hurricanes v Jaguares

Opinion: There's always a moment in the season when you're glad you signed up again to actually go to rugby live. In the open air.

For me it was the 56th minute against the Jaguares. The moment the touchie missed the foot out, an understandable error although one that about 8,000 others were pretty convinced they'd seen.

If the howls were loud then, they were tripled about 60 seconds later when the ref and TMO overturned the resulting Hurricanes try.

Now my right side brain later accepts that however frustrating that was, it was the correct call once the original gaffe became obvious. Very nice bloke, the right side of the brain.

But the left side, he's the baying one, in the moment. Loading out a bit of healthy invective and advice in a totally unbiased fashion.  Of course that's terrible behaviour and I apologise to the 20 or 30 people who were instead politely applauding the outstanding sportsmanship of the Jaguares
players for pointing out the error of their player's ways.

But you know, wasn't it great to then finally see the Canes loading up with some righteous anger. You just knew they were going to score very soon afterwards, and they did.

Not something you can get any feel for from your widescreen, now is it.

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The governor gives that a 3 out of 10. Methinks he doth underscore too much. I presume this is part of talking down expectations, but to play not too well for large parts of the game and still nail six tries has got to have some other sides thinking twice.

And what about the Bus. Like any Wellington Bus, you wait ages for one, and then three turn up at once.  I saw one reporter say that Jules didn’t have to do too much for his scores. He must have missed that one which ONLY the Bus could have scored.

And so the Landers became the first victims of Super fatigue. They've been admirable but that loss to the Reds now drags them back into the pack. It just shows you how quickly the New Zealand conference will swallow you up if you falter. You can't help thinking the bye came a round too late.

Now it's our job to not do something stupid like lose to the Rebels, because you know who's coming to town a week later.

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100 games for CJ. No mean feat.  My favourite CJ try was in Wellington but not for the Canes. It was when he'd won a somewhat disputed recall to the All Blacks and split the Boks wide open with an exceptional solo effort from 60 metres out. He smacked the ball down and slammed the fern even harder to show what it meant. A great moment.

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I have a couple of complaints about the 21st birthday party at the Cake Tin. Firstly, where's my slice of cake.

Secondly, we really needed a montage. All those wonderful Canes players and moments. Jonah, Jerry, Cully, Fish.  Oh we wanted a montage. Even Rocky had a montage.

Kev has followed the Hurricanes since they began. He has a season pass. Every year he predicts the Canes will win Super Rugby. He refuses to be called a long-suffering fan.