The Hurricanes are refusing to blame Jordie Barrett's brain fade for their historic 28-20 loss to the Jaguares in Wellington.
Barrett was sin-binned in the 15th minute for knocking the ball dead intentionally, with the referee going on to award the visitors a penalty try.
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While the Jaguars didn't score with the one-man advantage, they did score two more tries before halftime to lead 21-8 at Westpac Stadium.
They went onto claim their first-ever win against the Hurricanes, which sees them move to the top of the South African conference.
The loss was the Hurricanes' first at home to an overseas opponent since 2015.
While Barrett's blunder is the talking point, Hurricanes captain TJ Perenara admits his team were simply not good enough against a determined Jaguares outfit.
"It would be foolish to not look in the mirror and say that's not good enough," he said. "We're a better football team than what we showed out there.
"We didn't execute for long enough to apply any pressure on them. They're a really good football team, and if you don't build pressure on them, they'll put you away - like they did to us tonight.
"We're at home in front of our home fans, and we didn't pay up to the standard we need to play too. We will take motivation from that, and we need to be better every time we put on the jersey."
Perenara also conceded the penalty try call was correct, but admitted he could have been more involved in the play.
"Yeah, it's a penalty try in my eyes. I think the ruling is if you have an act that's a penalty, they act like you weren't there, so that's a penalty try. With a penalty try comes a yellow card, so I was sweet with it.
"To be fair, I probably should've made a play on the ball there. I tried to slide in on the ball, and I mishandled it and put Jordie under the pump there."
The Hurricanes have a bye next week, and will travel to South Africa in a fortnight to take on the Sharks in Durban.
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