HURRICANES BLOWN AWAY BY STORMERS

THE star-studded Hurricanes will struggle to make the Super 12 playoffs after being blown off WestpacTrust Stadium by the Western Stormers who dominated the final 10 minutes to earn a crucial 27-15 away victory.

A feel-good Friday night crowd crammed into the capital's showpiece stadium hoping to bear witness to an improvement on what has been two dreary rounds of what was, and should be, the most exciting rugby comp on planet earth.

Unfortunately the punters were once more served up dismal fare in the first forty minutes when some of the world's most talented backs ( on both sides) could only combine to create a messy stew of turnovers, poor passes and muddled moves.

Even the normally reliable goal-kicking let down the home team as first David Holwel and then Daryl Lilley ( who replaced Brad Fleming) missed a series of kicks and the half ended with the Hurricanes trailing 3-6 and down a man after a less-than-100 percent Jason Spice embarrassed himself by getting sin-binned for blatantly stomping a Stormers forward lying prone no-where near the ball.

After another lethargic opening salvo, despite a stated intent to "start fast", the Hurricanes signalled their desire to up the tempo in the second half with an awesome scrum shortly after kick-off. It looked as though loosehead Kevin Yates was all-over his Stormers opposite and by gaining go-forward space was being created for the danger men out wide.

And then the stadium erupted, the best money spent all year was the price of admission and rugby was magic once more. Jonah Lomu was passed the ball on his own 10 metre line and in a 60 metre stampede to score he highlighted his mantle as the "main man" by bursting through and over two would-be tacklers, then fending off a clinging Percy Montgomery, before accelerating away to swerve speedster Breyton Paulse and the cover before nonchantly dotting down to the roars of an adoring crowd.

Lilley's conversion saw the Hurricanes leading 10-6 after 12 minutes of the second half and the fans were expecting more, but to the Western Stormers credit they stepped up to wrench the dominance back from the home town pack who were starting to look decidedly ragged.

This lack of front-foot dominance allowed the Stormers to power back into the game and their favorite son No 8 Bobby Skinstad earned their first try with a barging run that revealed huge strength and took the South Africans to a 13-10 lead with Bramm van Stratten's conversion.

With the Stormers pack applying pressure and the Hurricanes continually failing to mount a cohesive offence the game was swinging away from the locals when attacking genius Christian Cullen dashed clear, chipped for himself and was away only to be caught from behind by Robbie Fleck. However the superb Cullen kept his head and fed Lilley, who by backing up scored an excellent try to give his team a 15-13 lead with 12 minutes of play remaining.

With this try against the run-of-play the Hurricanes were facing a torrid final phase against a team desperate to record their first win of the season.

And in a revealing test of character, at a crucial time before three extremely hard away games, the Hurricanes failed to deliver and like last week could only fade at the crunch.

But unlike last week they hadn't earned a substantial lead and when scintillating Stormers threeqaurter Breyton Paulse latched on to a dropped Hurricanes pass and sprinted 65 metres to score to see his team to a 20-15 lead with only five minutes remaining it was obvious the Hurricanes were once again a 70 minute team.

Hope of a final surge to glory was rubbed out when it was the Stormers who maintained the advantage after Paulse's try and when Robbie Kempson crashed over to secure the visitors a 27-25 victory as well as denying the Hurricanes a bonus point he may well have slammed the door shut on Graham Mourie's team making it to the final four.

Western Stormers 27 ( Bobby Skinstad, Breyton Paulse, Robbie Kempson tries; Bramm van Sratten 3 cons, 2 pens) Hurricanes 15 ( Jonah Lomu, Christian Cullen tries; Daryl Lilley 1 con, 1 pen)

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