I'd just like to say thanks to Ardie for getting us out of that shit storm.

Outstanding effort from Auckland. Really dominated in all facets. Please give those Cantabs a spanking next week.

From a Wellington persepctive Ben Lam showed exactly why he will never be an A.B. Didn't look interested at all. Toomaga Allen was another that just didn't really care about being out there.

As a Wellington and Canes fan I hope they don't get many games for the Canes this year. I don't care if Ben Lam scores 100 tries in a season, an attitude like that won't win any championships. He has proven time and time again that he goes missing in the big ones, just another big lazy wing that only cares about looking good.

Many on here believe Renata should be a Canes re-signing. 100% agree, atm all we need is a scrummaging prop and he looks to be getting better and better. Also how does Akira not make the A.Bs 51 man squad after a performance like that. Luke Whitelock is probably the most boring and ineffective player to ever grace New Zealand pro footy fields, only gets in through his Cantab connections.

My two cents on the game and I don't like to bag on the refs too much but the performance from O'Keefe was worryingly poor on both sides of the ball. (will leave it at that)

On the match itself, I felt the Canes really stood up on defence and kudos where it's due to the likes of Prinsep who made a whopping 21 tackles - if he puts in a shift like that every week then fair play to him on selection. I thought Scrafton had a blinder at lock apart from the two yellow cards (which on another day he have got away with) and Lomax was once again rock solid at scrum time. In the backs it was fairly obvious that Jordie brought the composure back into our game that was missing in the first two rounds. He helped the guys around him flourish so long may that continue. The pick of the rest for me was Kobus van Wyk who was solid with ball in hand and competent under the high ball. I was also really happy with Peter Umaga-Jensen aswell, defensively superb and proved a handful for the Chiefs defence at times.

The Chiefs, well where do we start. They relied far too much on their small men in this game and they just look like a poorly coached outfit. The frustration was summed up at half time by the assistant coach so I can't imagine the Chiefs will get too much rest over the bye week.

@tim Painful isn't it. Any one of us could have come up with a better list of squad players and these guys get paid for it.

Funny how in their season review they saw srummaging as a real weakness, yet they bring back every single player from that campaign, including the scrum coach who has been there far too long. If this was the NFL, none of them would have a job anymore.

Right, so you move the most dynamic loose forward to where he will be the least effective, that makes total sense..arggh. Having all three of those guys on the park makes sense but you would have to think out of all three of them Ardie is probably the least equiped to play blindside.

This is very cool:

@tim @tim Defensively Aso has too much to work on at centre. As a Canes fan I'm very suprised Aso has been given a look before Proctor. For me Proctor is the most important cog in the Canes backline and it wasn't a coincidence that we turned to shit after he injured himself this year. Same thing happened in 2016, once Proctor injured himself we didn't look the same then either.

@tim more than Brett Cameron.

@chris-b When Hammett first took over he said "judge me on my results" and as a Canes fan we gave him the benefit of the doubt, before swiftly realising he was far too inexperienced, lacked any real tactical coaching ability and obviously had no idea how to communicate with the melting pot of athletes in that Canes environment. Don't forget guys like Gear and Weepu also signed elsewhere as they knew it was probably career suicide sticking with a team that was being coached by someone completely out of his depth.

In my mind the return of players like Nonu and the introduction of local & experienced coaches in the form of Plum and Boyd probably reflects the true reason our results improved.

Mark Hammett may well be a successful coach down the track and may go on to coach a team to a Super title, but his time at the Canes was a failure because he wasn't ready to take on a position like that. He should have done his time at NPC level before getting a gig like that, something that still baffles me today.

So no, he doesn't deserve credit for the 2016 title.

Attended the game at Levin, the Canes came out firing and managed to build around 20 phases before scoring through Vince Aso. The Crusaders then had a 15-20 minute period where they took control and scored 3 tries through dominant set piece and maul play. The Crusaders were also strong at the breakdown, negating a number of attacking plays by the Canes. 19- 7 halftime.

The second half started in similar fashion with the Crusaders scoring two tries and going about their work in a tidy fashion. The Canes then brought on the likes of Fidow, Aumua & Walker-Leawere and the game shifted towards the Canes who started to dominate the collision with their powerful running game - two quick tries to the Canes had them momentarily back in it, before the Crusaders deflated any hopes with a late try.

Standouts from the Crusaders:
Number 12 (name escapes me): this young fella looks very good, broke the line a couple times and was very hard to contain.

Jordan Taufua: He was brutal at times and looks even bigger than he was last year. Dominanted alot of contact that he was involved in and looks ready for a big year.

Bryn Hall: looked very tidy at the base of the scrum and was probably the pick of the halfbacks.

Standouts for the Canes:
Sam Henwood: he was into everything early on and will be a very good backup to Ardie this year.

Alex Fidow: Dominated with ball in hand and wasn't too bad at scrum time. Was a big reason for the Canes re-assurgence.

Asafo Aumua: physically dominated in the contact when he came on. If he isn't on the bench against the Waratahs I will be very suprised.

Worries for the Canes:
Ongoing selection of James Blackwell as a lock: he is far too small to be a lock. Crusaders were killing the Canes scrum when he was packing down.

Halfback: Jono Hickey was shocking, I lost count of how many times he dropped the ball or fumbled it at the base of the scrum. Halfback is a big worry if Perenara gets injured.

Fullback: The overated Chase Tiatia nearly played a whole game at Fullback because we had no one else in the reserves. Harken came on and finished there. A worry if Jordie gets injured.

All and all it was a nice afternoon up the coast, great crowd and no injuries to boot.

Bring on the Blues next week.

My two cents on the game yesterday, I managed to get along after deciding last minute to head in. It was a weird game, good crowd but the atmosphere was dull. We were hot on attack for long periods but the crowd offered no support whatsoever. Not sure if it's Kiwi crowds in general or just Wellington crowds but they could do with some amping up.

From a Canes perspective, it felt really similar to last week against the Chiefs. I felt we were never going to the lose the game but we really struggled to put the Highlanders away. I guess a big work on is our finishing. It was good to see Aumua take his opportunity with two hands, rock solid on defence and showed he can still be devastating with ball in hand. Devan Flanders was impressive from the stands, he seems to have all the tricks in the book and seems to be surprinsgly strong for such a young kid. It was also good to see Scott Scrafton put out another strong performance. Players that didn't hit the mark for me yesterday were Ben Lam and Vaea Fifita off the bench. Just poor decision making from two guys that should know better by now. Lam seemed disinterested the whole game until the ball came his way, poor work rate. Fifita, well he botched about three hit ups in the space of ten minutes, either knocking the ball on in contact or losing it in possesion. Would prefer Flanders moving forward.

On the Landers, I was really impressed with Frizzel and MMT, they will both go close to All Black selection this year IMO. Very physical on defence and equally sound taking the ball into contact. Aaron Smith once again proved his worth but I felt TJ Perenara edged that battle (only slightly). I thought Hunt had a good game and threatened with almost every run. (bar the one when he ran into Aumua). Overall the Highlanders just lacked a little sting in everything they did and that's where the Hurricanes were able to get ontop.

All in all, it wasn't the best game but as a Canes fan I will take the W all day of the week. Bring on the Blues.

@Stargazer this is true. I wonder if Van Wyk will stay on aswell.

@Stargazer we already have a ready made replacement for Lam - Salesi Rayasi.

Went to the game before and Walker-Leawere was helping out with the warmups, so not sure what the play is with him.

@ACT-Crusader the coaches obviously don't understand the definition of a lock. I don't know, maybe he hasn't been meeting the Hurricanes fitness standards.

In this 'What a lad' podcast with Alex Fidow (https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/what-a-lad/alex-fidow-what-a-lad-fML5pAEWCdy/) he admits that himself and the likes of PUJ, Aumua and IWL all had poor training habits in the first two years in the Wellington academy. Fidow mentions that Chris Gibbes brought him to tears when he turned up for the Wellington Lions weighing 137kg. He's now at a very fit 116kg aparently. What I'm getting at is IWL might not be meeting the fitness standards that Gibbes has brought into the Canes. I guess he will rise up to the challenge like Fidow and shape up or ship out to another franchise. (This is only an assumption of course).

So Taramai before IWL, ffs. Wouldn't be suprised if he signs for another franchise now and goes on to be a long term All Black. Unless he has already signed somewhere else and that's why they keep leaving him out...

@Nepia who knows? I've been scratching my head most of the season in regards to selection.

This Canes side would look alot more potent if we had the likes of Rayasi, Aumua, IWL, Toala, Flanders and a good first five in the 23.

@Nepia same, especially considering Lam is shooting off soon.

Those not selected for the Canes this week and playing club rugby in Wellington are.

Peter Umaga Jensen (Wainuiomata)
Chase Tiatia (HOBM)
Salesi Rayasi (HOBM)
Jackson Garden-Bachop (Norths)