KEY POINTS:
Hurricanes 13
Sharks 13
It's almost impossible to follow the fortunes of the Hurricanes and not wonder about contracting some kind of fever. Hot, cold, hot cold - that's what you get from this lot with no clue as to where the thermostat will sit in any
given week.
Last night it was mainly cold, as if too many players had let the incessant rain seep into their brains and damage some of the transistors.
But that rain didn't wash away their courage. They were brave to the end and while there was much flawed in their tactical thinking and execution, there was nothing wrong with their bottle and referee Paul Marks needed to go upstairs in the final act of the game to see if a try had been scored.
The home crowd certainly thought so but Marks said the ball had been knocked on and that was that.
The Hurricanes gave it heaps. And heaps more and, when all looked lost in the final 10 minutes when the Sharks were awarded a penalty try, they could have given up.
But not this team. They bounced back immediately, rumbled up field and kept flying into the contact. Their reward came when the relentless Sharks' defence was finally breached by Andrew Hore and, with Jimmy Gopperth kicking a difficult conversion, they had the draw.
Probably the Hurricanes will feel most relieved by the result. The Sharks had a late penalty crash off the post and there was also the fact the Hurricanes just didn't play anywhere near as well as they can.
The Sharks needed to be broken down by something a little smarter. The visitors, like many of the South African sides, got off the line well and swarmed the ball carrier, using their greater upper body strength to nail the Hurricanes behind the gain line.
There was also the problem that some of the Hurricanes' most vital weapons were strangely out of sorts. Like Jerry Collins who inexplicably couldn't get into the game and was hesitant at times. It was most un-Jerry and it got a little contagious as there were a lot of unforced errors.
But the Hurricanes coaching staff will be most concerned with their poor kicking game. The conditions were crying out for a commanding performance from either Piri Weepu or Jimmy Gopperth or preferably both.
Neither man really grabbed it, though. Maybe it was the heavy ball, but the Hurricanes lacked depth with their kicking and couldn't push the Sharks back as far as they would have liked.
All that made for a real arm wrestle where neither side could break free. That upped the frustration, too much for Sharks replacement Epi Taione who was shown a red card after head-butting Jeremy Thrush in a maul.
The Hurricanes tried gallantly to use their extra man advantage but for the most part they couldn't get the momentum through the usual suspects - Jerry Collins, Rodney So'oialo and Chris Masoe.
Without the momentum, they couldn't get the ball into space and let Ma'a Nonu do his stuff. Nonu was the biggest threat on the park, making good progress down his left flank every time he had the ball. That was another major problem for the Hurricanes, they just couldn't get it to him.
If the Hurricanes had carried a sneaking suspicion the Sharks might not be anywhere near the same team on the road as they are in Durban, they would have had that knocked out of them pretty quickly.
Quite what Freddie Michalak, the enigmatic French superstar wearing the Sharks No 10 jersey, will have thought of his inaugural Super Rugby venture in this country will be quite fascinating to learn.
The little Frenchman who broke four million hearts last October, said before coming here that he felt the Super 14 wouldn't really start for him until he had played in New Zealand.
Well, he got the tough challenge he was clearly after. The incessant rain didn't help and while he was no stranger to seeing Collins coming for him, he might not have realised how much easier it was going to be for the big man to get to him.
In Super Rugby the fringe defences are not what they are in tests and there was a little bit of fear tainting the work of the Frenchman.
Maybe that's what he wants. That is, after all, the whole point of travel and embracing new cultures - to broaden the mind and life experience.
The Hurricanes might have felt hard done by that referee Marks didn't broaden his mind and enrich the Hurricanes' experience by awarding a penalty try when Sharks midfielder Bradley Barritt tackled Conrad Smith when a try seemed likely to have been scored.
The Canes crowd hollered blue murder and maybe they had a point - but a Hurricanes side anywhere near its best, or with a decent kicking game, would have won this earlier instead of blowing hot and cold.
Hurricanes 13 (A. Hore try; J. Gopperth 2 pens, con) Sharks 13 (Penalty try; F. Steyn pen, con; R. Pienaar pen)
