Stopgap flyhalf Piri Weepu kicked four goals from five attempts as the Wellington Hurricanes beat South Africa’s Bulls 17-9 in a Super 14 rugby match on Saturday.
The All Blacks scrumhalf, assigned the number 10 jersey as the Hurricanes voted no confidence in their two specialists in the position, landed all four goals in the first half, including a 48m effort into a swirling breeze.
Weepu’s Bulls opposite Derick Hougaard kicked three penalties, two in the first half and one in the second, in a lacklustre match in which all but five points came from goalkicks.
Both sides lacked the skill, precision or ambition to produce a genuinely interesting match. The Bulls took a responsive role to a more assertive Hurricanes side, lacked set piece authority or defined purpose in the loose, rarely threatening the Wellington line.
The Hurricanes began by attempting a high energy style but their lack of ball security and tendency for thoughtless kicking deprived their game of structure and fluency.
They still produced the only try of the match, and one of its rare moments of revealed skill, when winger Hosea Gear touched down 18 minutes before fulltime.
Weepu had a hand in creating the try, chip-kicking then recovering the ball from the arms of Bulls winger Bryan Habana.
Weepu flicked a quick pass to winger Corey Jane who embarked on a long, jinking run, confounding the Bulls’ last defenders before passing to Gear in the right-hand corner.
Weepu missed the conversion, his only goalkicking lapse.
”I put it down to a team effort, not an individual effort,” Weepu said. ”We needed to start the second round clean and rested and we did.”
The teams combined for more than 50 turnovers, mainly from their failure to protect the ball in tackles.
The Hurricanes seemed to want to confront the Bulls using their hard-running loose forwards, to quickly recycle possession then to use quick passes to outflank the defense but they failed in all of those ambitions.
They spilled the ball at breakdowns, their passing was ponderous and their play was riddled with handling errors, poor kicks and tactical misjudgements.
The Bulls, also out of form, spent more than 17 minutes inside the Hurricanes’ 22 but never looked like scoring a try, depending too much on driving play which was seriously flawed.
”It was disappointing not even to get a bonus point,” said Bulls captain Victor Matfield. ”We lost a couple of guys just before kickoff which unsettled us a bit, but no excuses. They’re a classy team.” – Sapa-AP
Scores:
Wellington 17 (Hosea Gear try; Piri Weepu 4 penalties), Bulls 9 (Derick Hougaard 3 penalties). HT, 12-6.