Rennie credits tight five as charges register another win
The Chiefs have ridden their luck, and opponents’ generosity, to the top of the ultra-competitive New Zealand Super Rugby conference. Or as Dave Rennie prefers to think of it, ‘‘we’re building nicely’’.
There’s certainly a theme emerging as Rennie’s Chiefs banked their second bonus-point victory in as many games in their home opener against the Blues at Stadium Waikato on Friday night. Last week in Dunedin the Highlanders had muffed a gaggle of clear-cut chances and gifted two tries to the visitors as they secured a bizarre 24-15 first-up victory.
On Friday night there was also an element of self-inflicted pain from the opposition, this time in the form of Steven Luatua’s deserved red card on the stroke of halftime that for all intents and purposes handed the game to the Chiefs.
Of course, they still had to be good enough to grab it which they patently were en route to a 41-26, six tries to three, victory that was more clear-cut than those final digits indicate.
Rennie certainly presented a more contented figure this week, and well he might have.
The Chiefs have just banked the maximum from two Kiwi derbies, they still haven’t got Sam Cane on the park yet (though likely will next week) and that pack of theirs is fast developing into a quite formidable unit. A backline with Tawera KerrBarlow mixing steely defence with sniping brilliance, Aaron Cruden pulling the strings masterfully and Damian McKenzie, James Lowe, Tim Nanai-Williams and Anton Lienert-Brown chipping in with moments of brilliance isn’t half bad either.
The departing coach was with the first 60 minutes. rapt
‘‘We played with real intent, our ability to build phases and apply pressure was really good, and we had a lot more physicality around the cleanout,’’ Rennie said.
‘‘Plus
Not so much the final 20 as the Blues rattled off three tries and 17 unanswered points to turn a rout our set piece was excellent.’’ We were a lot better, a lot more accurate . . . into something a little more respectable.
‘‘Unfortunately the guys who came off the bench felt the job had been done. We loosened right up, didn’t win any races, lacked physicality, didn’t work hard enough defensively and gave away a hell of a lot of penalties.’’
But Rennie felt it had been a major improvement on Dunedin, and maybe on Friday against the Hurricanes the full 80-minute effort will be forthcoming. It may well be needed
‘‘We were a lot better, a lot more accurate, the attack got going and found a lot of holes and it was good to get some structure out there. We’ve got a long way to go, but if you’d said to me a couple of weeks ago we’d come out with 10 points against two New Zealand sides we’d be stoked.’’
Definitely stoked was KerrBarlow who shaded his battle with former team-mate Augustine Pulu as the Chiefs did a brilliant job shutting down Blues danger men Rieko Ioane and Pulu.
‘‘We thought we played within ourselves a little bit in Dunedin, first game against a really good Highlanders outfit. We wanted to hold on to bit more pill tonight and express ourselves. I thought we did that for the most part. We did a lot of positive things and it’s a real step in the right direction.
‘‘Our tight five were awesome at the set piece, and we have to take our hats off to them because without the big boys we wouldn’t have been able to get our game going.’’
Blues coach Tana Umaga had no arguments with the red card – pointing directly at Luatua’s lack of discipline – but took plenty from his team’s strong finish when his All Blacks-laden bench finished with three tries to run off the last 17 points.
Charlie Faumuina, Ofa Tu’ungafasi, Patrick Tuipulotu, Jerome Kaino, George Moala and Rene Ranger all made big impacts off the pine and James Parsons tucked away 40 minutes for the development team. Umaga refused to confirm as much afterwards, but expect most, if not all, to be in the starting XV for Saturday’s Eden Park clash against the Highlanders.
‘‘It must be the Lions coming to New Zealand but there’s an edge in every New Zealand camp at the moment which is great for our country and our national team,’’ Umaga said. ‘‘It just makes it tough.’’