Donald excited to lead depleted Chiefs tomorrow
A year after he led the Chiefs to a famous victory over Wales, Stephen Donald gets the honour again against the British and Irish Lions tomorrow night in Hamilton.
The Donald legend, which began with a bang after his deeds as a replacement in kicking the penalty which got the All Blacks over the line against France in the 2011 World Cup final, reached a different level at Waikato Stadium when he orchestrated a victory over Warren Gatland’s Welshmen 12 months ago, and the man they call Beaver is eager for more.
“The Chiefs mean everything to me,” Donald said after being named as the Chiefs No 10 and captain.
“Obviously it was a huge honour to do it last year and I’m very excited to be doing it again.”
Coach Dave Rennie is without several of his top players who were involved in Saturday night’s 32-10 defeat by the Lions in Rotorua, including Damian McKenzie, whom he considered putting on the reserves bench but had to decide otherwise after the little No 10 suffered a few knocks late in the Maori All Blacks slugfest.
Midfielder Charlie Ngatai, who spoke of his pleasure at getting through 80 minutes at the Rotorua International Stadium after his recent concussion issues, is missing too, but loose forward Liam Messam has been named on the bench and will get his chance to go one better against Gatland’s mid-weekers. Hooker Hika Elliot, on the bench in Rotorua, has been named as back-up again.
“They were all pretty keen to play,” Rennie said of his Maori representatives. “Our thinking behind that is all of those guys played pretty big minutes last night. We have other players who are fresh and keen and we’ve got confidence in so the rest of those guys will miss out.”
Rennie has, however, been able to name at centre Tim Nanai-Williams, a man who created problems for Sonny Bill Williams when playing for Manu Samoa against the All Blacks at Eden Park and who could create similar issues for a Lions side which will be down on quality compared with the shadow test team who crushed the Maori.
The Chiefs will look to emulate the successful formula of the Blues and Highlanders in using an up-tempo game, but Rennie conceded it would not be easy.
“It’s not a mystery,” he said of the Chiefs’ likely approach.
“We like to use the ball, we try to play a high-tempo, high-skilled game of footy. The Lions have been excellent at choking teams from doing that so we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us.”
He added of the Lions: “Clearly they’ve got better and better, haven’t they? They were impressive last night and to be honest I thought they played pretty well against the Highlanders. They were in a position to nail that and in true Highlander fashion they never gave in and stole it at the death.
“They’ve got a number of guys who will be keen to play a bit of test footy on this tour. Maybe it’s a chance to scrap for some spots on the bench, I’d imagine their test XV will be nailed and will probably stay in Auckland, so I think they’ve got a lot to play for, likewise have our guys.”
Hamilton is, of course, familiar territory for Gatland, a former Waikato player and coach who had his homecoming last year tarnished by disappointment. This time he will be hoping for a far better performance from his Lions team and isn’t likely to be subjected to any verbal digs from Rennie.
The Chiefs coach, asked about the banter starting to fly between Gatland and All Blacks coach Steve Hansen, said: “I tend to let my players do the talking on the field rather than enter into all that witty stuff. That’s probably beyond me.”