"We wouldn’t have dreamed about being able to win a final by 60."
It was perhaps Clark Laidlaw, the Hurricanes head coach, who summed up it up best after his side’s Super Rugby Pacific grand final victory over the Chiefs in Wellington last night.
As the celebrations flow on from this 60-5 masterclass of a performance, they may be tinged with disbelief. Finals aren’t supposed to be won like this, and especially not in gale-force winds in a stadium like the Cake Tin which is notoriously difficult to play in when the breeze is up.
In the winners’ press conference afterwards attended by Laidlaw, who has burnished his reputation significantly with this championship victory, and not only because it was the first in 10 years for the Hurricanes (after their first in 2016), but because of the way they played throughout the season, plus co-captains Jordie Barrett and Du’Plessis Kirifi, the Scotsman continued.
“Sometimes rugby is a funny game,” Laidlaw said. “In the first half it felt like everything went our way – little bounces of the ball and gusts of wind. Also, the men were exceptional around taking their opportunities… a lot of what we trained came off tonight.”
The Hurricanes scored nine tries to one against the second-best team in the competition who a week earlier demolished the defending champion Crusaders.
Their 29-0 halftime lead was a competition record in grand finals, as was their 55-point margin of victory. Tries from wings Fehi Fineanganofo and Josh Moorby took them to 17 each for the season – a joint competition record.
First-five Ruben Love scored two spectacular tries and kicked conversions from all over the place plus a penalty from halfway for a haul of 25 points and has presumably put himself at the front of the queue for the All Blacks’ No.10 jersey for the first Test against France in Christchurch on July 4.
It’s difficult to escape the feeling that no matter how the good times roll over the next few days, the Hurricanes will struggle to find the flow state of last night during which they were given an extremely tough assignment against a quality team in difficult conditions and all but laughed in the face of the challenge.
The players performed with a huge amount of ambition and skill – attributes matched by their decision-making – all of which reflected their self-belief and the way they had been coached.
Finals are often dour affairs – last year the Crusaders ground out a 16-12 victory over the Chiefs in Christchurch – but this was a match of near constant and almost surreal highlights; a fever dream for the home supporters and another nightmare for the visitors.
Laidlaw wasn’t the only one to find the right tone in the immediate aftermath.
Chiefs head coach Jonno Gibbes, in charge of a franchise that has now lost four grand finals in a row, said: "You have to admire what the Hurricanes were able to produce tonight. They were difficult conditions. We made uncharacteristic mistakes and they were extremely accurate and did a lot of damage each time they got the ball."
For such a tight-knit team to be led by Barrett and Kirifi, close friends from their days together at Francis Douglas Memorial College in New Plymouth, also felt appropriate.
"Historically the Hurricanes have always been able to score tries but this year we’ve shown we can win games with our shoulders which is extremely pleasing because it takes a lot of hard work to get into a position where defence is not just a strength but a weapon," Kirifi said.
"I feel like that was a very hard-earned championship – not just this season but for a few seasons now. We deserved that one after the way we went about our work. Just proud."
Barrett said: "It took 125 games for me [to win a final] so it’s pretty special.
"It’s been one of the slowest weeks of my rugby career. In some ways I knew this group that this game in them – it was just a matter of bringing it."
Fans of the team, and they should be growing in number after this, will hope their players are rewarded with higher honours.
Dave Rennie will name his first All Blacks squad of the year tomorrow in Feilding, and many will hope outside backs Fineanganofo, Moorby and Callum Harkin are in the mix for the first time.
One who has seen his stocks rise significantly – and in reverse proportion to the struggles of incumbents Damian McKenzie and Beauden Barrett – is Love.
"He’s really starting to mature as a first-five… at the start of the season he was worrying a bit much about game-management … rather than just playing," Laidlaw said. "He feels like he’s got the balance now around understanding when to pull the trigger.
"A couple of weeks ago he picked up a calf niggle and wasn’t able to train all week – it shows the confidence he’s starting to build."
Jordie Barrett said: "He’s a guy with so much talent."
And, just finally, a word on the Hurricanes' team song, which references past greats including Tana Umaga and the late Jerry Collins and which was sung several times last night and no doubt will be over the next few days; like the team itself, it is extremely hard to forget. In a good way.
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