Hurricanes 41-0 Sharks: Hosts cruise into Super Rugby semis
Last Updated: 24/07/16 4:14pm
The Hurricanes recorded a 41-0 thrashing of the Sharks in Wellington to march confidently into the Super Rugby semi-finals.
The conditions at Westpac Stadium on Saturday were atrocious, but the Hurricanes were undeterred as they ran in six tries against a traditionally strong Sharks defence.
Scores from Loni Uhila and James Marshall gave the home side a 13-0 lead before Jason Woodward and Vaea Fifita scored back-to back tries for a 27-0 lead going into the final quarter.
The icing on the cake was added by TJ Perenara and Brad Shields to complete a demolition job on the South Africans as the Hurricanes booked their place in the semis.
"We knew we couldn't be too expansive because of the weather but we wanted to play in the right areas of the field," said co-captain Perenara.
"When we got the opportunity to get into a bit of space, we took it."
The Hurricanes, who lost to the Highlanders in last year's final, joined the reigning champions in the last four and are guaranteed a home semi-final after finishing top of the regular season standings.
They look likely to be without skipper Dane Coles next week, however, after the All Blacks hooker was forced to leave the pitch with what appeared to be a rib injury soon after half-time.
The Durban-based Sharks, who were looking to become the first foreign team to win a play-off match in New Zealand, had started brightly but fly-half Garth April was unable to deal with the swirling wind and missed two early penalty chances.
Hurricanes fly-half Beauden Barrett had no such problems and kicked the first points of the match in the 14th minute before conjuring up a perfectly-weighted cross-field kick that led to Uhila's try three minutes later.
Woodward claimed Barrett's kick and raced for the tryline before being brought down. The ball was recycled and popped to Uhila running a good angle to crash over.
Perenara then burst down the blindside from an attacking scrum to send Marshall over in the corner. Neither try was converted, leaving the home side 13-0 ahead. Sharks skipper Tendai Mtawarira was denied a try shortly thereafter because of a double movement, in what was the Sharks' only real scoring opportunity.
Woodward had added another seven points within as many minutes of the restart after another Perenara charge up the touchline, in which he barged aside his opposite number Michael Claassens before popping the ball inside for Woodward to score.
Two minutes later, Perenara was fielding a high kick before dancing past a couple of defenders and offloading to Uhila, whose quick hands sent Fifita rampaging to the line.
Perenara then crossed himself before Shields dotted down with no time remaining to round off a thrashing and become the first team to keep the opposition scoreless in the Super Rugby play-offs.
Watch more Super Rugby quarter-final action live on Sky Sports 3 HD on Saturday via the Red Button - Lions v Crusaders is at 3.30pm, followed by Stormers v Chiefs at 6pm.