They were always a candidate to take a royal pasting. It would have been hard enough playing the Reds with those players missing but to take on the runaway tournament leaders without the big weaponry was mission impossible.
That's why the Blues never once looked remotely likely to be anything other than a distant second. Once the Hurricanes scored their first try after half an hour, in fact, everyone could see the pattern into which the game was going to fall.
Everyone could see as early as then that the question was by how much rather than if the Hurricanes were going to win.
The weather could only protect the Blues so much. The wet ball and heavy pitch could only foil the Hurricanes for so long. Half an hour in and they were protecting the ball better; they were more cautious but accurate and with just a fraction of momentum in each collision, they could inch by inch pull the Blues defence out of shape.
It wasn't a night where the Hurricanes could play at their preferred high tempo. It wasn't a night that they could keep things rattling on, offload out of the tackles and kill the Blues aerobically.
It was more a night of solid up the guts, no nonsense ball carrying from the forwards and plenty of it.
It was bash, bash, bash one off the ruck until eventually there were more Hurricanes attackers than there were Blues defenders and the damage could be done.
TJ Perenara kicked more last night than he probably has all season and, albeit it was against mediocre opposition, the Hurricanes went some way to showing they can be more than the great entertainers.
The weather isn't going to get any better the deeper it gets into winter. The pressure and intensity is only going to increase in the next few weeks as the outcome of each game starts to become season defining. The Hurricanes might not be able to open up the way they would like in the coming weeks and rely more on their bludgeon than rapier.
At the start of the season few were picking their forwards had the heart or grunt to last the season and be the heart of the battle.
That theory was already looking flimsy as it was but last night blew away its last shred of credibility. It's a nonsense - the Hurricanes pack can go the distance and they look about as well drilled and as physically capable as the so-called best in the competition.
There is no soft underbelly to the Hurricanes and with Beauden Barrett and Conrad Smith to come back into the fray, they will have another dimension again.
The Blues shouldn't be too dis-heartened that the they had their clock cleaned by the Hurricanes - plenty more teams will suffer that same fate before the season ends.
Blues 5 (M. Vaega try)
Hurricanes 29 (C. Eves, T. Perenara, D. Coles, N. Milner-Skudder tries; O. Black pens, 3 cons)
For all the latest Super Rugby stats go to:
nzherald.co.nz/rugby/statscentre
