Beauden Barrett steers Hurricanes to 34-28 win over Stormers

Hurricanes 34 - 28 Stormers, Westpac Stadium

Beauden Barrett scored the decisive final try in the last 10 minutes as Hurricanes completed a 34-28 win over Stormers in their Super Rugby encounter at Westpac Stadium.

This is Hurricanes' fourth win from six games as they are at the second place of New Zealand Conference while Stormers occupy the pole position in the South African group despite the defeat.

The game started with two minutes of silence as a tribute for the victims of the mass shootings that took place in two mosques in Christchurch last week.

SP Marais kick-started the proceedings with back to back penalties in the fourth and ninth minutes as Stormers raced to a 0-6 lead but it was short lived as Ben May dotted down in the 12th minute and Beauden followed it with a conversion and a penalty to make it 10-6.

Stormers suffered a setback when Jean-Luc du Plessis was sin-binned in the 23rd minute and Jordie Barrett made use of the numerical advantage when he crossed over in the 24th minute after getting hold of a grubber kick from Richard Judd to make a scoreline 15-6.

By the half-hour mark, Siya Kolisi helped the visitors bounce back after breaching the defence of the home side following a line-out and a conversion and penalty apiece from Marais mean the scoreline became 15-16.

Just as half-time was approaching Hurricanes suffered a setback with Vaea Fifita yellow-carded following which Bongi Mbonambi crossed the whitewash to make it 15-21 at the end of the first half.

Hurricanes though bounce back strong with back to back tries from Wes Goosen in the 52nd and 62nd minute that was separated by a try from Jaco Coetzee in the 58th minute which took the scoreline 27-28 at the end of the third quarter.

Just as the final 10 minutes started with all the three results possible, Beauden saw the Hurricanes through with a try and also improved it to complete a 34-28 win.

“They put a lot of pressure on us, so we have to take our hat off to that,” said skipper Barrett.

“We did well to slow them down and put them under pressure.”