Rugby: Scrappy Hurricanes know work still to be done

Jordie Barrett had a relatively quiet outing against the Jaguares in Argentina. Photo / Getty Images.

While the ledger shows a bonus point win for the Hurricanes in their match against the Jaguares on Sunday morning, coach Chris Boyd knows there is work to be done.

Coming into the match off what Boyd deemed to be the worst outing of his three-year tenure, the Hurricanes needed to bounce back.

To an extent, they did. Running in five tries to zero and showing a stonewall defence, the Wellington-based side claimed a 34-9 victory.

"We just needed to be more clinical and more accurate, bring more intensity, a high level of work rate," Boyd said.

"I think by and large we got tested pretty heavily at the set piece at times and we got tested pretty heavily around our goal line at times and I think we stood up to most of those occasions."

However, poor discipline and handling errors littered the game around the few moments of quality play.

The Hurricanes turned the ball over 13 times and conceded 17 penalties in the match. While they got away with that this weekend, they will need to be better when they meet the Crusaders in Wellington in round three.

"We had patches where I thought we were good but there was time that we were a bit loose and a little bit inaccurate.

"The source of the ball wasn't always tidy and what we did with it wasn't always tidy. But what we did improve on significantly from last week is that our defensive effort and our ability to get off the line and keep knocking them over when they kept coming at us I thought was significantly different to the Bulls game last week.

"It was a long way from a complete performance, a long, long way, but I think it was a step in the right direction after a poor performance last week."

The Hurricanes got on the board early through a Ben Lam try, and Ngani Laumape made a strong run from short distance to add to the score.

While it was expected the home side would test Hurricanes fullback Jordie Barrett with Nicolas Sanchez's long kicking game, the returning Barrett had a relatively quiet day.

The Jaguares looked to use their strong forward pack at every opportunity, but could only manage to score in penalties. Sanchez slotted two in the first half and another in the second to score all of his side's points.

Even when the Hurricanes went a man down after Ben May took out a man away from the ball around the 50-minute mark, the Jaguares could not penetrate the Hurricanes' line.

With the win all but in the bag, late tries to Vince Aso and Blade Thompson secured the bonus point - an added extra the Hurricanes may not have deserved, but will gladly take.

Hurricanes 34 (Ben Lam, Ngani Laumape, Matt Proctor, Vince Aso, Blade Thompson tries, Beauden Barrett 3 cons; Jackson Garden-Bachop pen)
Jaguares 9 (Sanchez 3 pens)
HT: 12-6