Chiefs show they know how to play with mean streak
Fiery forwards provide the steel to complement their silky backs.
Many of my childhood memories revolve around going to Hamilton from Waihi and watching Waikato teams smash the life out of Auckland sides. The name of the ground has changed, from Rugby Park to FMG Stadium Waikato, the playing surface has improved from cow paddock to bowling green, but one thing stayed the same when the Chiefs faced the Blues.
The men from Moolooland know how to play angry.
The Blues’ fate was sealed from the moment Steven Luatua was ordered off, but even before that wildly reckless moment the Blues forwards were struggling.
At the lineouts Brodie Retallick was a looming, threatening figure. The Blues scrum was under huge pressure, and, most vitally, at the breakdowns the Chiefs, with Retallick and Liam Messam especially prominent, were ruthless, smashing over the ball, and either winning it, or making the feed for Blues’ halfback Augustine Pulu slow and awkward.
For two weeks in a row the Chiefs have come to the game with a real edge, so niggly that Aaron Cruden may be the only first-five in the country who shoves and niggles as play breaks up.
Only the Chiefs know what’s driving the aggressive mindset, but if they have developed an Us and Them philosophy (think Strippergate, and the grumpy reaction of Cruden when he became one of dozens of players whose offshore contract details reached the public arena) it may not be a bad thing. There is no question the skill sets of rugby players now are light years ahead of the amateurs of the past.
But, as it was in the 1960s, as it is in the 2010s, the game remains physical and the steel and silk combination the Chiefs have, of fiery forwards, as hard as anvils, providing the ball so backs like Cruden, Damien MacKenzie, and Tim Nanai-Williams, can smoothly glide past tacklers, is hugely potent.
Eddie Jones, we’ve discovered, loves a joke as long as it’s not on him.
Eddie huffed, puffed, and pulled out the weak ‘‘it’s not rugby’’, when his robotic England players were revealed as not the sharpest knives against Italy. The Italian side refused to engage at the breakdown, meaning there was no offside line. England panicked.
‘‘I’m the referee, I’m not a coach,’’ was the brilliant response of Romain Poite when England’s James Haskell begged Poite to tell the English how to form a ruck.
For my money the best, and certainly the funniest disregard of the rules, was inspired by a Wallabies coach, Darryl Haberecht, who in 1975, while coaching New South Wales Country, noted there was nothing in the rulebook that mentioned a player sticking the ball up his jersey.
So late in a grudge match against NSW Town in Sydney, the game in the balance, a penalty was awarded to Country. The call went out to use what Haberecht had named ‘‘Tap 5’’ in training, but which would instantly become known as ‘‘the ball up the jumper’’.
Halfback John Hipwell took the ball while the rest of the team stood around him with their hands inside their jerseys.
Hipwell slipped the ball to No 8, Greg Cornelsen who stuck the ball up his jersey (and three years later would become an Aussie legend by scoring four tries against the All Blacks at Eden Park). His teammates scuttled in various directions, the city slickers didn’t know whether to chase, tackle, or just whine at the referee, spaces opened, Cornelsen pulled the ball out, a few passes later Brian Mansfield scored for Country, the conversion went over, and the game was won, 22-20.
The IRB, about as amused as Eddie was in Rome, banned the move within six months.