Blues survive late red card to beat Hurricanes for first win of the season

Hoskins Sotutu was sent off late in the Blues win over the Hurricanes. Photo / Photosport

Blues 33

Hurricanes 29

Taking their third shot at getting on the board for the new Super Rugby Pacific campaign, the defending champions finally hit the target.

In a back-and-forth game where both teams were made to pay for ill-discipline, the Blues rode a strong finish to a 33-29 win in Wellington, surviving a late red card to No 8 Hoskins Sotutu to close out a shaky win.

“We’ve got to build our season and building our season is performing well week in, week out and getting points on the board,” Blues captain Patrick Tuipulotu told Sky Sport.

“Having no points in the first two rounds probably hurt us a lot, but we can only build from here.”

The Blues will now have to wait and see what the foul play review committee have to say about Sotutu’s shot on counterpart Peter Lakai – direct shoulder-to-head contact deemed to have no mitigation after being reviewed.

Sotutu’s was the third red card to be brandished so far this season; the first two – to Reds midfielder Hunter Paisami and Highlanders prop Daniel Lienert-Brown – received three-week suspensions.

It was the second card of the game for the Blues, with centre Rieko Ioane spending time in the sin bin after his team committed repeated infringements.

Ioane’s was the third yellow card in a matter of five minutes, after the Hurricanes lost both their starting and reserve tighthead props to yellow cards within two minutes of each other inside the opening 20 minutes.

It was far from a polished performance, but will be one Vern Cotter’s side can build upon.

Defensively, they were immense at times. While the Hurricanes enjoyed long periods with ball in hand, they struggled to breach the visitors’ line. But outside of a glistening five minutes at the back end of the game that saw tries to Sotutu and a brilliant solo effort from Mark Tele’a give the Blues the lead with 10 minutes to play, their attack lacked execution.

The Blues outscored the Hurricanes five tries to two, but were made to pay for the penalties they committed, with 15 of the Hurricanes’ points coming from Harry Godfrey penalty goals. The young first five-eighths accounted for a total of 24 points in the game, with Kini Naholo the only other Hurricanes player to get on the score sheet.

While the Hurricanes enjoyed long periods with ball in hand in the second half, the visitors did themselves no favours with their aimless kicking; back-to-back punts from Caleb Clarke and Harry Plummer going out on the full midway through the second half summing up the Blues’ struggles to get something going.

Penalties dictated the early scoring, with Godfrey slotting a penalty before the Blues were awarded a penalty try as the Hurricanes infringed as the Blues scrum was rolling towards the tryline.

Tries to hooker Ricky Riccitelli and Cameron Suafoa saw the Blues hold a 21-19 lead at halftime, and it wasn’t until Naholo’s 60th-minute try that the scorers were troubled again.

Godfrey’s conversion gave them the lead, but that was erased 10 minutes later. While they had opportunities to strike late with Sotutu off the park, the Blues held on to close out the win.

Speaking to Sky Sport after the game, Hurricanes captain Du’Plessis Kirifi said they would take plenty out of the game but there were some areas to address.

“We’re going to be pretty hard on ourselves, because that was our game to win and we let it slip.

“A long hard look over the weekend and on Monday is what we need.”

Blues 33 (Penalty try, Ricky Riccitelli, Cameron Suafoa, Hoskins Sotutu, Mark Tele’a tries; Beauden Barrett 2 cons)

Hurricanes 29 (Harry Godfrey, Kini Naholo tries; Godfrey 2 cons, 5 pens)

HT: 21-19

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.