Hurricanes overcome yellow cards to beat Fijian Drua 38
SUVA, Fiji (AP) — The Wellington-based Hurricanes overcame a poor second half in which they incurred three yellow cards to beat the Fijian Drua 38-15 in Super Rugby Pacific on Friday, stretching their winning start to the season to eight matches and ending the Drua’s unbeaten record at home.
The first-place Hurricanes were impressive in the first half, scoring four tries to lead 28-7 at halftime.
But their game started to fall apart in the second half and they spent almost 10 minutes with 13 men when DuPlessis Kirifi and Isaia Walker-Leawere were sin-binned in the 64th and 65th minutes. Replacement prop Caleb Delany also received a yellow card two minutes before fulltime.
In the other match Friday, the Queensland Reds beat the Dunedin, New Zealand-based Highlanders 31-0 at Brisbane. Coming off three losses in a row and missing four frontline players in Tate McDermott, Fraser McReight, Josh Flook and Seru Uru, Queensland dominated the match with Hunter Paisami, Ryan Smith, Lawson Creighton and Suliasi Vunivalu scoring tries in a bonus-point win.