Chiefs face stern

Coach Dave Rennie isn’t trying to polish what was a sloppy performance in Melbourne on Friday night, reports Joseph Pearson.

A frustrated Dave Rennie says a ‘‘pretty rigorous review’’ is needed after the Chiefs scraped past the Rebels in Melbourne on Friday.

The Chiefs head coach admitted they didn’t work as hard as they should have in this week’s preparation after three successive New Zealand derby wins.

Beating the Highlanders, the Blues and the Hurricanes looked to have taken its toll, but the Chiefs snatched a bonus point 27-14 victory with a strong finish at AAMI Park to go four from four ahead of their bye week.

They scored three tries in the final 14 minutes to nab the comefrom-behind win, but Rennie didn’t mince his words on the messy effort, saying afterwards the match could upset their positive start to the season.

"The frustration can overshadow that a little bit but we’re really happy with where we sit,’’ Rennie said as the Chiefs top the Super Rugby table with 19 points from a possible 20.

‘‘We won ugly, but we learned a lot around genuine preparation that we talked about all week. I just felt that we didn’t work quite as hard as we did in the last couple of weeks.’’

The Chiefs handled losing Liam Messam and Solomon Alaimalo to yellow cards in each half, but it epitomised their poor discipline.

In a desperately untidy first half, the Chiefs conceded nine penalties – mainly for not releasing – and were lucky to lead 7-3 at half-time as the Rebels controlled the breakdown.

‘‘We also knew they’re really good post tackle and we had to win races in there, and to be honest we got beaten in there for the majority,’’ Rennie added.

He said they had more than enough chances to put the Rebels away in the first half, after they had conceded 127 points in huge defeats to the Blues and the Hurricanes in rounds one and two.

Whatever was said at half-time didn’t get through to the players until the last 14 minutes, as late tries to Brodie Retallick, Sam