Hurricanes keen to keep Chiefs star quiet in top of the table clash

Ruben Love of the Hurricanes and Quinn Tupaea of the Chiefs battle for the ball.
Photo: Aaron Gillions / www.photosport.nz

The Hurricanes plan to take the wind out of the sails of storming Chiefs midfielder Quinn Tupaea.

After dispatching the Blues 42-19 in Wellington, the Super Rugby leaders head to Hamilton for another top of the table clash this weekend.

“We were pretty proud of our performance (against the Blues),” Hurricanes midfielder Billy Proctor said.

”We’re happy in a lot of areas and happy that we did what we talked about and took the opportunities that we thought were going to be there.”

Billy Proctor celebrates scoring a try with team mates.
Photo: MARK EVANS

The Chiefs crushed Moana Pasifika last round to leapfrog the Blues to second in the standings, three points behind the Hurricanes, who have a game in hand.

Proctor said the Hurricanes are confident following last week’s big win, but he knows they face an equally big test of their title credentials against the Chiefs.

“The boys are looking forward to it. We’ve had a good game last week and looking forward to hopefully backing it up and putting consistent performances together,” Proctor said.

“Looking at the Chiefs, they’ve got a bit of everything. They’ve got power game with the forwards that they have. There are a lot of threats over the ball and they also like to move the ball with the likes of Dmac (Damian McKenzie) running their cutter. He’s not afraid to throw the ball around and use attacking kicks. We know the kitchen sink is going to be coming this weekend. So we’re prepared for it.”

Part of that preparation involves coming up with strategies to minimise the impact Tupaea has on the game.

The All Blacks midfielder has been in fine fettle for the Chiefs.

His status as this season’s top Super Rugby Fantasy pick was enhanced by his 97-point (fantasy) performance against Moana Pasifika last weekend which kept him ahead of Hurricanes winger Fehi Fineanganofo at the top of the fantasy rankings (461 points).

Tupaea is fourth equal (with Proctor) on this season’s top tryscorers list with six tries. He has made the most metres (446) and clean breaks (10) of any midfielder. He is second equal in the competition across all positions for number of carries (98) and third for defenders beaten (31).

Chiefs’ Quinn Tupaea scores a try.
Photo: DJ Mills / Photosport

Proctor, who is also vying to impress new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie ahead of the test season, said the Hurricanes have been doing plenty of study on how to stop Tupaea.

“He’s been playing awesome. One of the top performers,” Proctor said.

“His strength has always been his ability to be able to find the ball, get his hands on the ball. His post-contact metres are impressive. He loves to leg drive and he’s a good jackal (stealing opponents ball after tackling before a ruck has formed) also. We’re well aware of that.

“There’s ways to shut him down in terms of getting into his space, not giving him the time and space that he wants and then just protecting our ball when we have it.”

Hurricanes assistant coach Brad Cooper wasn’t giving much away, but he’s confident his side can nullify the threats Tupaea poses.

“We talked about our breakdown work, obviously he’s good at the breakdown in terms of jackling, so we have to be really proactive there to take that threat. Offensively, it’s been spoken about around his impact there. You just do your best as a team to limit those opportunities.

“Each week we come in and we identify a few opportunities, so we think there’s a few there. I’m obviously not going to tell you guys, but yeah, we’ve got a good plan around that.”

Though Cooper is wary of focusing too much on one player and said the Hurricanes will have plenty to deal with on Saturday night.

“A good team across the board,” Cooper said.

“They play pretty similar to us. They’re quite confrontational inside the 22 and they like to play with the ball and move the ball you know out further in the middle of the park. The same as us.

“They’ve got players with good skill sets and they want to use that, but when it comes time to get confrontational they do. I think the stats will say that they get the most post-contact metres and they hit the fastest ball so we know we’re in for a big breakdown challenge this week.”

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