Hurricanes march on as Auckland give Brumbies the blues

Wellington Hurricanes maintained their 100 per cent start to this year’s Super Rugby Pacific with a 38-15 win over Fijian Drua, while Canterbury Crusaders slipped back to the foot of the table with a 37-15 loss to the Western Force on Saturday.

There were also wins for Auckland Blues and Queensland Reds. The Hurricanes lead the table with 37 points from eight games, followed by the Blues with 32 and Australia's ACT Brumbies on 27.

The Hurricanes were far from perfect as poor discipline in the second half led to three yellow cards, but they inflicted a first home defeat of the season on their Fijian hosts.

The visitors led 28-7 at the break and had already secured their bonus point, but were scrappy after the break and took 34 minutes to add to their score with three players sent to the sin-bin.

Centre Jordie Barrett, who announced this week he would miss the 2025 Super Rugby season as he turns out for Irish side Leinster, was one of their five try-scorers.

"We talked about it during the week, that it was going to be about the effort early," Hurricanes captain Brad Shields said. "We didn't think we were going to be down to 13. But it did show good character, the way we held it together on the line and connected on defence."

The Blues inflicted a crushing 46-7 defeat on the Brumbies in a battle between second and third on the table in Auckland, their biggest ever win against the Australian side as they ran in seven tries to one.

The Brumbies came into the fixture with six wins from seven games this season but were thoroughly outplayed at a wet Eden Park as number eight Hoskins Sotutu scored a brace of tries for the hosts.

"We know that we can play the carry, clean game really well and we knew with the weather it was going to be a