Collins' spirit carried Canes
Hurricanes captain Conrad Smith and his team drew on the spirit of Jerry Collins and used their bottled up emotion to inspire them to victory.
A chant of "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry" spontaneously burst out just before the end of the game as fans began to deal in their own way with the death of the former All Blacks and Hurricanes loose forward.
With the FIFA under-20 World Cup in New Zealand this month and a bye into the semi-finals, the Hurricanes had not been at their home ground since Collins' death.
A massive No.6 jersey was unfolded on the halfway line before kick-off by members of his local club Norths, while Bay Six of the stadium had been turned blue and white by others from the club in honour of Collins.
The Hurricanes have had "JC" embroidered on all of the playing jerseys and had spoken in the buildup to the semifinal about how much the spectre of Collins and their memories of him would fuel their performance.
"It's hard to quantify but it is definitely playing its part. We don't want to focus on it. We acknowledge it but we let it burn inside and it comes out in its own special way," Smith said.
The Hurricanes were brutal on defence, stopping the Brumbies attack before it really got into gear, with loose forward Ardie Savea, Victor Vito and Brad Shields particularly vicious at the breakdown, while the tight five made numerous big tackles.
They then starved the Brumbies of possession and hammered them up the middle of the park before they spread the ball to expose gaps out wide.
It was the kind of cerebral approach that Collins, who often publicly played up to his hard man image to deflect from his burning intelligence, would have relished.
"It was a good mix of enterprise and defence. We didn't always get our options right but we managed to recover and get back into shape. It was a pleasing effort," coach Chris Boyd said.
Reuters
