NRL Telstra Premiership<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s a scenario that will play out again when the Hurricanes meet the Queensland Reds.<\/p>\n
The two teams at polar ends on the form scale meet in Wellington on Friday, with the home side firmly favoured to notch a 10th straight win and stretch New Zealand’s dominance over Australian sides to 40 successive matches.<\/p>\n
The youthful Reds are coming off a 63-28 thumping from the cellar-dwelling Sunwolves and are given little hope of ending an inter-conference streak which Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd believes has infiltrated the mindset of players.<\/p>\n
And he doesn’t just mean from the Australian teams.<\/p>\n
“They (Reds) will be pretty keen to be the team that breaks it but no New Zealand team wants to be the team that finally falls,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Any of those streaks always carry a bit of psychological stuff in the background.”<\/p>\n
Reds captain Scott Higginbotham remembers fondly when the imbalance was minimal.<\/p>\n
In 2015 he was part of a Rebels side who knocked over the Crusaders, Chiefs and Blues.<\/p>\n
Higginbotham says the Australians can physically match anything their trans-Tasman foe throw at them.<\/p>\n
The difference is they are playing second fiddle psychologically, he said, underlined by the Crusaders’ stunning 31-29 comeback win over the Waratahs last week.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think we need to be tougher. I know the blokes in the team are tough and they can match it with the Kiwi sides,” Higginbotham said.<\/p>\n
“But it’s knowing you can win those games.<\/p>\n
“The Crusaders showed that on the weekend, it doesn’t matter if they’re 29 points down. They’ve got the belief that they can win and they were able to do it.”<\/p>\n
Higginbotham says falling to the Sunwolves the week after a compelling win over the Lions emphasised the inexperience in the Reds squad.<\/p>\n
He believes they have the capacity to lift against a Hurricanes side who have tallied 46 tries this season and also boast the stingiest defence in the competition.<\/p>\n
Shutting down five-eighth Beauden Barrett’s time and space is the Reds’ primary objective, which could stymie a star-studded backline.<\/p>\n
One potential Hurricanes chink is the inclusion of Peter Umaga-Jensen on debut as All Blacks inside centre Ngani Laumape is rested.<\/p>\n
Umaga-Jensen, 20, is the nephew of former All Blacks captain and Blues coach Tana Umaga.<\/p>\n
He has beaten twin brother Thomas in the race to wear a Super Rugby jersey, with the latter in the Highlanders team but having been sidelined all season with injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mental warfare has become a part of trans-Tasman games, providing an intriguing backdrop to the Super Rugby season. Click Here: NRL Telstra Premiership It’s a scenario that will play out again when the Hurricanes meet the Queensland Reds. The two teams at polar ends on the form scale meet in Wellington on Friday, with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}