Chiefs face long haul for Stormers
The Chiefs are off to Cape Town, to face the Stormers in Super Rugby’s quarterfinal next Sunday morning.
Having done as much as they could to avoid the long haul to South Africa, with their 28-10 finalround win over the Brumbies in Hamilton last night setting them up for a potential rematch in Canberra, the Chiefs then watched the Hurricanes-Crusaders game anxiously from their changing room at FMG Stadium Waikato.
But their cheering for the Crusaders in the end proved futile, with the Hurricanes’ 31-22 win in Wellington sending the Chiefs on their mad journey across the world.
It started with a 2am bus to Auckland overnight, followed by the boarding of a flight which goes to Sydney, Johannesburg, then Cape Town.
It presents a repeat of last year’s quarterfinal matchup, where the Chiefs hammered the Stormers, who then got revenge with victory in round seven this year.
While the Chiefs won’t be so chuffed with having to go on their long haul, they will at least take some confidence from resuming after the international break in decent touch, having put the finishing touches on a first-ever Kiwi clean sweep over Aussie opposition in the regular season.
Led by a magical display from fullback Damian McKenzie – who scored 18 points and not only produced his customary twinkle toes, searing pace and superb setup play, but also delivered back-flick passes en masse and quality goalkicking – the Chiefs made it a stunning 25-0 in the trans-Tasman stakes.
If you take last year into account it’s now 31 in a row, with the Hurricanes having the chance to add to that against the Brumbies next weekend.
Already assured a home quarterfinal under this crazy conference format – and potentially being against the Chiefs – the Brumbies came to town with 12 changes from last weekend, while the hosts were also keeping powder dry.
Resting Brodie Retallick, Sam Cane and Anton Lienert-Brown, the Chiefs also had Tim Nanai Williams on Samoa duty, left out Dominic Bird because of a head knock, then Liam Messam was a late withdrawal, with his tweaked hamstring at training not considered too serious. That saw Lachlan Boshier move across to blindside, Mitch Karpik promoted to start at openside, and James Tucker added to the bench for his first action of the year.
That theme continued when second five-eighth Charlie Ngatai was pulled at halftime, having gone down with an ankle problem early on, as Dave Rennie emptied his bench with 10 minutes to play. Ngatai, limping post-match, was considered only a possibility for Cape Town.
The Chiefs do have the chance to host a semifinal and final, but this, in front of 13,753, was potentially the last game at home for their departing crew, with Rennie and assistant Kieran Keane, along with Hika Elliot, Leitch, Tawera Kerr Barlow, Aaron Cruden and Lowe all heading offshore.
Loose forward Tom Sanders is also understood to be leaving, back to the Crusaders.