All Blacks centre Ma’a Nonu scored two second-half tries to help the Wellington Hurricanes back into play-off contention with a 34-11 Super 14 victory over the Stormers on Saturday.
Nonu finished off a mid-field break by fellow All Black Cory Jane in the 52nd minute, then burst through three tackles from an attacking scrum to give the home side a bonus-point try 10 minutes later.
The victory moved the Hurricanes up to 29 points, equal with the Bulls, who have a better points differential and retained second place behind the Sharks (30), who play the Canterbury Crusaders in Durban later.
Lock Jeremy Thrush and winger Tamati Ellison — who was set up by Nonu with a long cut-out pass — scored the other tries for the home side, while flyhalf Willie Ripia slotted four conversions and two penalties.
”We achieved what we set out to do today, which was to win,” Hurricanes captain Rodney So’oialo said. ”The boys had to focus and deny them possession and we started to do that very well in the second half.” Replacement centre Dylan des Fountain, who came on for Stormers captain Jean de Villiers in the fifth minute, opened the scoring in the eighth minute with an opportunist try when he kicked ahead from deep inside his own half.
Hurricanes fullback Jane, who was the last defender, slipped over as he turned and Des Fountain then managed to beat Ripia to the ball as it bounced over the try line, though Peter Grant made a hash of the easy conversion.
Grant also missed another easy shot at goal, but slotted two penalties, one on each side of the halftime break.
”No excuses for tonight, it was a poor performance from our guys. We made a lot of errors and the Hurricanes capitalised on it,” said Stormers stand-in captain Schalk Burger.
”It has been the story of our season, we have coughed up so much ball and we can’t get any continuity.
”They’ve [the Hurricanes] got game breakers all over the park and we saw tonight that if you give them loose ball and possession you can’t defend it.” – Reuters