Jordan Kahu’s brilliant Nines tournament ruined by shot clock madness

JORDAN Kahu was one of Brisbane’s best in the Auckland Nines until his moment of shot clock madness cost the Broncos a chance of victory.

Jordan Kahu. The Brisbane Broncos training at UQ at St Lucia. Pic Peter Wallis

A SHATTERED Jordan Kahu rued a shot-clock blunder that cost the Broncos any hope of Nines glory and took the gloss off his outstanding tournament.

Trailing 15-0 in a quarter-final against the Roosters, Brisbane produced the comeback of the tournament when Sam Lavea crossed in the dying stages to whittle the deficit to 15-14.

Kahu only had to land the simple conversion to propel the Broncos into the semi-finals. But the 25-second shot clock expired just as he kicked, with the referee sensationally denying the goal as the ball sailed through the posts.

It was a gut-wrenching finale for Kahu, who took little consolation in being the Broncos’ best player at the Nines with a magnificent six-try haul at Eden Park.

Kahu hadn’t put a foot wrong until the final game.

“I’m pretty devastated,” Kahu later lamented.

“I just thought I got it away in time but obviously not.

“It’s pretty tough, you’re used to a couple of minutes when you kick and that (25) seconds when you score is pretty short.

“Obviously that last moment pretty much kills the buzz for me, so I’m pretty disappointed.”

Broncos Nines coach Jason Demetriou refused to blame Kahu, who propelled Brisbane into the knockout stage with a series of spectacular tryscoring dives.

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“Jordy was fantastic for us,” he said.

“We can look at that moment and say Jordan should have kicked it earlier, but we were 15-0 down and that’s what cost us in the end.

“I’m proud of the boys, we came here to get something out of it to continue our pre-season and we’ve definitely done that.”

The Kiwi international scored six tries in the tournament.

While Kahu, Darius Boyd and rookie forward Jaydn Su’A were standouts, it was a frustrating weekend for Benji Marshall.

The Broncos recruit failed to appear on Sunday with an achilles complaint and is in doubt for Brisbane’s World Club Series trip to England this week.

“Benji will have to get a scan, he has had a flare up from his achilles,” Demetrious said.

“It’s not too serious, but we need to get on top of it, he has carried it for the past four or five weeks and trained all right leading in, but the short turnaround probably affected him.”