Chiefs specialise in magic comebacks
It’s now 120-25 to the Chiefs in the second stanza of their games in 2020, writes Aaron Goile.
Chiefs coach Warren Gatland swears there wasn’t magic potion fed to his players during his halftime team talk against the Waratahs.
But whatever his troops drunk in the sheds at Wollongong on Friday night definitely looks a fun guzzle, for what followed was one of the most emphatic halves of Super Rugby you will see.
Down 14-13 at the break, the visitors went berserk in a 38-0 second spell, to claim a 51-14 bonuspoint win which elevates them to the top of New Zealand conference, ahead of the Crusaders on points differential.
It was the Chiefs’ biggest win against the Waratahs, their most points scored against NSW, and the first time in 13 years they had beaten them on the road.
Reflecting on the sublime second-half showing, Gatland said rather than any sort of wizardry, it was just about his players being patient and backing their physical condition to wear down their opponents.
‘‘We feel like we’re in pretty good shape from a conditioning point of view, we’ve been training well with some really good intensity,’’ he said.
‘‘The time with ball in play was pretty high in that first half and we just said at halftime ‘We’re blowing a wee bit, but if we are then they’re going to be in a worse situation than us, just keep up the intensity and the pace in the second half’.’’
And the rest was history, as the visitors ran in six unanswered tries against a zapped Waratahs side, continuing a trend of dominant second 40 minutes, with the Chiefs now outscoring their opponents a whopping 120-25 in their five second halves this season.
‘‘The teams at this level, you know you’re going to be in an arm wrestle in the first half, it’s just about addressing a few things at halftime, getting it right, taking a bit of a break and building on the confidence,’’ Gatland said of a statistic which also says a lot about his own performance in being able to analyse play, deliver messages and see results through.
Going into the match, it was their starts the Chiefs were desperate to fix, and they actually got a result there, too. Gatland said they tweaked their warmup to include more attack into contact, and also went onto the park later, and back into the changing rooms closer to kickoff.
They went on to score the first try of the game for the first time this season, and went up 13-0 before allowing the Waratahs to roar back with what Gatland said were ‘‘a few soft penalties’’.
In the end, it was a funny game on the stats sheet, as the Waratahs finished with 60 per cent possession, around the same amount of territory, made half the tackles the Chiefs did and beat 27 defenders to 22.
But, with aggression on the counter-ruck winning them nine turnovers to two, and slick distribution and plenty of pace seeing them make 18 clean breaks to nine, the Chiefs were able to capitalise whenever they got a sniff.
‘‘The difference between teams at the highest level is sometimes two or three players with that X-factor, and we saw a little bit of that from some players last night,’’ Gatland said.
One of those in particular was winger Shaun Stevenson. The 23-year-old has been in and out of the side in the past five years but was hot in this one, scoring the first try, leading the team’s running metres (82) and being equaltop for defenders beaten (four) and clean breaks (three), along with pulling out an unbelievable no-look flick pass for halfback Brad Weber’s second try.
‘‘There have been certain games where his focus has been ‘staying focused’, and being in the game for 80 minutes and not switching off and just being mentally tough,’’ Gatland said.
‘‘A couple of times he’s been good on attack and he hasn’t always been the best defensively.
‘‘And I thought he was excellent last night.
‘‘We try and encourage our wingers to have a licence to get lots of touches, and if they’re ending up on both sides of the field we’re happy with that.’’
With Damian McKenzie coming back following a rest week, and Solomon Alaimalo and Sean Wainui also impressive in the back-three division, it means it’s one of a number of areas where there’s good competition for spots.
‘‘We’ve got a couple of All Blacks at the moment who are having to fight for their position, they’re not going to stroll back into the side, they’re going to have to work pretty hard,’’ Gatland said. ‘‘And from a coaching perspective, that’s exactly how you want it to be.’’
The Chiefs now turn their attention to hosting the Hurricanes in Hamilton on Friday night.
They will assess a couple of niggles, with captain Sam Cane and first five-eighth Aaron Cruden both replaced before the hour-mark against the Waratahs – Cane having taken a knock to the quad, while Cruden had a tight hamstring.
‘‘We’ve got a couple of All Blacks at the moment who are having to fight for their position . . .’’ Chiefs coach Warren Gatland