Hurricanes leave it late to stun the Blues in Super Rugby thriller

The Blues blew a massive lead in their Super Rugby Pacific encounter against the Hurricanes, conceding three late tries to lose 33-32 at the Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin on Saturday.

The teams scored nine tries between them in a classic see-saw Super Rugby encounter that could hardly have ended more dramatically.

The Blues began the game on the front foot and looked by far the more likely of the two teams to open the scoring. Six minutes in, a relentless 14-phase attack was cut short by a Jordie Barrett intercept.

Harry Plummer knocked a penalty over in the seventh minute to give the Blues the lead before missing his second shot at points six minutes later.

The Hurricanes grabbed another intercept in the 14th minute as Salesi Rayasi stepped into the line to steal Zarn Sullivan's looping pass.

The winger sprinted the better part of 50m to score the try and hand his side the lead against the run of play. Barrett added the extras to make it 3-7.

The score seemed to wake the Blues up, and they hit back in the 23rd minute as Kurt Eklund crashed over for a try after an unstoppable rolling maul.

Six minutes later, another flowing attacking move involving Plummer, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Sullivan resulted in acres of space for Caleb Clarke to run into and get over the line. Plummer knocked over both conversions to bring the score to 17-3.

However, true to form, the Hurricanes never let them get out of arms reach and had an answer of their own around the half-hour mark. Barrett broke the defence wide open in midfield before putting Wes Goosen through for his 26th Super Rugby try. The fullback also hit the conversion.

The Blues forwards were determined to have the last word of the first half, though, and another impressive maul set up