Hurricanes captain Dane Coles knows his team must improve if they want to topple the Crusaders in next week's Super Rugby semi-final in Christchurch.
The Hurricanes did it tough in their quarter-final against the Bulls in Wellington, scraping home to a 35-28 win to earn them a date against the two-time defending champions at OrangeTheory Stadium.
John Plumtree's side were made to work hard for the win against the Bulls. They were up 29-14 early in the second half, before two tries in the space of 10 minutes saw them close the gap to four points.
But the Hurricanes did enough to hold out their South African opponents, as Ardie Savea came up with a huge turnover in the final minute of the contest.
They face a tough ask if they want to beat the Crusaders as Scott Robertson's men have never lost a Super Rugby playoff game at home in 22 attempts, while they're also unbeaten in their previous 29 home games.
"It was good we ground out the win. We had to work bloody hard. The Bulls turned up and wouldn't go away all night, but we hung in there and got the win.
"We have to make sure we nail the key moments that might be small at the time, but they have big impacts of the game where teams gain momentum and score. It's a good learning for us and we will have to be at our best next week.
"Their home record is impressive but its final footy, and we have to try enjoy it and embrace it."
Coach Plumtree wasn't looking ahead right away as he was still catching his break after a "stressful night in the coach's box."
"There were a lot of big moments out there. The try after halftime was good, then we've come under pressure and conceded that yellow card and penalty try. All of sudden we lost a fair bit of momentum and they gained it and from then we had to show a lot of character around hanging on."
"Defensively we were OK, but certainly we're going to have to be a lot better next week.
"There are some things we'll definitely have to look at during the week that were a little bit not us, but there was some fantastic offloading from them which we knew they were capable of. That's pretty hard to look after."
The winner of the Crusaders v Hurricanes semi-final will face either the Jaguares or Brumbies in the 2019 Super Rugby final.
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