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Highlanders upset Hurricanes 14-9

18th February, 2011
13

Flyhalf Lima Sopoaga scored the first try of the season in an 11-point haul that helped the Otago Highlanders to a surprise 14-9 win over the Wellington Hurricanes in the opening match of the expanded Super Rugby tournament.

Sopoaga managed only two penalties from six attempts, but his 20th-minute try – the only five-pointer of a substandard match – allowed the underdogs an advantage which endured throughout the match.

The Hurricanes were affected by a number of penalties and played the last 30 minutes with just 14 men after centre Ma’a Nonu was sent off for a shoulder charge on his All Blacks teammate, Highlanders scrumhalf Jimmy Cowan.

The Highlanders also ended the match with 14 men after replacement Braydon Mitchell was sin-binned in the 70th minute by Australian referee Stuart Dickinson, who handed out three yellow cards and a red card along with 24 penalties.

Otago led 11-6 at halftime and a scrappy second spell resulted in only a penalty to each team as the defence of the Highlanders shut down Wellington’s backline which included All Blacks Nonu, Conrad Smith, Aaron Cruden, Hosea Gear and Cory Jane.

“We should have closed it out after Ma’a was sent to the bin,” Highlanders captain Jamie McIntosh said. “We made hard work of it, but that’s character-building I suppose.”

Sopoaga, who turned 20 last week and was playing his first Super match, landed a penalty after eight minutes.

Cruden replied four minutes later to level at 3-3 but Sopoaga’s try, set up by Cowan, gave the Highlanders a lead that survived the last three quarters of the match.

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Cowan made a devastating break around the back of the lineout, picking out mismatches with the Hurricanes’ tight forwards, and Sopoaga was at his shoulder when he delivered the ball just short of the goalline.

Sopoaga missed a simple conversion, but added a penalty which completed the first-half scoring when Nonu received his first yellow card 10 minutes before the interval.

Dickinson had already delivered a general warning over infringements at the breakdown, and when Nonu grabbed the ball at a ruck, he was immediately sent to the sin-bin.

For his second yellow card, he was judged to have felled Cowan with a shoulder charge, although it appeared he was attempting to contest the ball in the air.

“We didn’t click too well. They lived off our mistakes and there were plenty of those,” Wellington captain Andrew Hore said.

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