Aisle Be Back: Super Rugby Final week

We are, once again, GOING TO THE FINAL, GOING TO THE FINAL**. Let’s hope we get to dissect just how in the heck that happened at our leisure, with a maiden first Super title on our collective mantelpieces.

Because I’m sure there’s a great tale there. This is a team that shipped 50 points against the dinosaur Brumbies in round one. If I’d been writing this blog when that match happened, I’d have been forced to say the Hurricanes 2016 were a disgrace to the jersey.

Remember, too, that despite a much improved second match against the Highlanders, we were effectively starting to prop up the bar in the last chance saloon by round 3, when they squeaked past the Blues at Eden Park.  

Yet the team has not only dug itself slowly out of that hole, but is now coming home at a furious clip.

So let’s finish the job. For all the great players and teams from the past who’ve tried and come up short. And finally, for the fans who’ve enjoyed so many highs and more than a few lows from the most exasperating of franchises.

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Now it’s time to scare yourself. Here are some of the quaint theories already going around too many traps for my comfort concerning the final against the Lions. In brief, that we’re favourites.

I just can’t shake a famous 2011 match where a team came off a terrific semi-final win and up against an opponent considered rank outsiders. From memory, the winning team won 8-7. You may even recall the game.

It’s our time:  No more than it is the Lions time. They have never won the Super title before either and in fact, have been a joke for much of that time. Elton Jantjes was close to crying after their semis win. Don’t tell me they aren’t motivated just as much.

No-one has ever won after flying across the Indian Ocean: It’s not the Bermuda triangle guys, it’s a plane trip with jetlag. It’s not easy, but well, Johan Ackerman has only himself to blame for that.

South African rugby is off the pace:  Uh huh. Well Jantjes looks pretty much on the pace. You don’t have the top scoring record for the comp without having a mindset that embraces speed and skill and some big beef. And they won on the road in New Zealand.

We thumped them over there during regular season: True that, and it’s not irrelevant. But then the Sharks thumped us during regular season. None of this matters in a final.

That’s enough. If you detect the above or variations, especially if spoken by anyone in the final 23 for Saturday, then stomp on it.

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The Cane Train you may recall usually starts with a small engine, pulling maybe two carriages, full of desperate souls who never choose any other train to catch and who still believe this time, they’ll reach the destination. Oh, and a very overladen baggage car.

By mid-season, there’s usually been a dining car added and another carriage. Enough to make a decent disaster when the derailment happens.

Right now, there’s been added several viewing cars, a first-class carriage, and right at the back, half a dozen of those ride-on-the-roof specials from the Indian sub-continent.

Which is why I much enjoyed a Facebook photo on Sunday showing a jubilant bloke fist-pumping at the stadium. A few years ago he explained why he had stopped going to live rugby. It just wasn’t as good as the old days.

Admittedly I think he meant the Jonah, Jerry and Cully days.

But there he is. Back on the Cane Train. I wonder if he’s going to stay.

** Time for an official disclosure. Due to a serious conflicting event, I didn’t make it to last year’s final. So I’m a finals virgin. Not a bad thing in retrospect, considering the hash the rest of you made of it in 2015.

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.