Hore puts some heart back in Hurricanes

OPINION: For the Hurricanes and the Blues the past week's pressure has been a tonic.

In the Canes camp, after two straight losses in South Africa, coach Colin Cooper dropped a couple of selection bombshells that from a distance had a hint of desperation.

With that background, the last place you would want to be is in Pretoria at Loftus Versfeld, where the ruthlessness of the Bulls and their fans makes Attila the Hun look warm and cuddly.

What a hugely pleasant surprise to see Andrew Hore and his men, who started the game as $7 outsiders at the TAB, play so well they nearly produced the upset of the year before going down 18-19 to the reigning Super 14 champions.

You expect Hore to relish the brutal collisions that are a huge part of the Bulls' game. He's a magnificent throwback to an earlier era of forward play, when All Black forwards were mainly farmers, who found any effort from a referee that suggested they couldn't look after themselves as repellent as a suggestion they might find they liked wearing their wives' underwear.

The huge plus for the future of the Canes was how so many of the team, from the wiry lock Michael Paterson, to the previously out of sorts Ma'a Nonu, to Victor Vito, eschewing his running gifts for hard graft, put on the Andrew Hore jacket and turned the Bulls from bashers into the bashees.

There was no fairytale ending, but the Canes know they can match the best in the competition, a mindset that at Super rugby level is essential.

The Blues produced some of their best rugby this year to beat the methodical, low risk Brumbies 39-34.

Two men epitomised the difference between the teams.

One was firebrand Rene Ranger, a back with the attitude of a forward (he wishes rucking was back in the game), who smashed aside tacklers with such ease the potential coach Pat Lam sees for Ranger to be a Tana Umaga-style centre was perfectly demonstrated.

The other point of difference for the Blues came in the shape of Jerome Kaino, who had the edge on one of Australia's best, the Wallabies captain, Rocky Elsom.

Being based in New Zealand's media centre the Blues will always be subjected to intense, almost suffocating, scrutiny. If they play more games as they did against the Brumbies they have nothing to fear from that.

MAORI MANAGOOD ON the NZRU for arranging three big games for in June to celebrate the centenary of New Zealand Maori rugby.

In a perfect world the games wouldn't clash with the tests the All Blacks have that month, but matches with Ireland and England will pay tribute to the enormous contribution Maori have made to the game here, and might be an ideal time to acknowledge the shabby treatment of Maori that saw legends such as George Nepia, JB Smith and Tiny Hill left behind when for over 30 years we sent all-white teams to South Africa.

JONNY ROTTENTHERE'S LITTLE guilty, vindictive pleasure to be gained from what looks like the end of Jonny Wilkinson's international career.

Wilkinson's attitude to attacking play makes a concrete block look imaginative, but it wasn't his fault an approach where the only variation was which foot he kicked with was so well suited to the deathly tactics employed by Clive Woodward.

Most of all your heart almost bled for an obviously decent, but doubt plagued man.

Evidence of neurosis? Warned he should practice less, he couldn't stop himself until he broke down with a stress groin injury. Immediately after his drop kick sealed the world cup win in 2003 in Sydney, Wilkinson wrote that "I know I could have done certain things better on the pitch, I know that I missed three dropped goals, I've certainly got that thought tucked away in the back of my mind."

Wouldn't bagging a man already so tough on himself be a bit like killing Bambi?

MIGHTY QUINNMIXED MAILBAG this week.

On a dream world cup commentary team Jill Smith is an "avid Keith Quinn fan" who sincerely hope he'll be used for the cup.

"He is brilliant at doing his homework re countries and players which adds to his commentating. Hearing him again at the sevens was great. It's a credit too that New Zealand commentators see two teams on the field, unlike the Aussies who regularly tend only to see one."

A worried Leo Gordon believes the senior players in the 2009 Springboks "worked out that the current All Blacks backs cannot cope with a defence that is consistently in their face, as did the French in the first test here last year. In all four games the ABs lost.

"When France played a less aggressive, more open game in the second test in Wellington – they lost! In the current Six Nations the French are now playing in the oppositions' faces, with an aggressive, defensive style. They've won all their games to date and will probably win the championship. I predict the ABs will never win the world cup playing their current style of rugby. How's that for a lack of optimism?"

And following my suggestion that Stephen Jones combines the melancholy of the Welsh with English cynicism, Graeme Barrow says "it's boring enough having some thin-skinned hack [not necessarily you] reacting to everything the egocentric Stephen Jones writes, but when the response becomes personal, and is garnished with snide sneering at the Welsh and English, then we have really immature sports journalism."

Come on Graeme, at least I resisted the temptation to say his mother dressed him funny.

- © Fairfax NZ News