Chiefs go soul-searching
There’s a dark old rugby cliche that goes along the lines of ‘‘a win is a win’’.
And for the Chiefs it was almost as much comfort as they could possibly take after a near-chaotic showing against the Sunwolves.
To come away 27-20 victors over Super Rugby’s worst side, in Hamilton on Saturday night, and not be able to claim what appeared a gimme bonus point, bordered on embarrassing for a team with genuine title hopes.
In miserable conditions at FMG Stadium Waikato, was it really rain in the eyes of the 10,657 brave souls who turned up, who were those tear drops, as they watched yet another underwhelming effort from their side on the slide?
Credit to the Sunwolves, it must be said, for what was their third and final game on a gruelling New Zealand tour, and managing to keep fighting till the end - holding the Chiefs from attaining the bonus point at the death with 13 players spoke volumes - as they defended with hearty passion, and even showed creativity in their ball movement and nabbed two tries, winning the second half 17-7.
And even the Chiefs, largely through livewire fullback Damian McKenzie – without him they could well have been stuffed – showed touches of their thrilling best, which just added to the frustration, that they couldn’t make it last.
Co-captain Sam Cane said the mood in the sheds straight after was gloomy, and that it wasn’t going to require him giving a rocket, because all in sundry knew the deal.
‘‘Just judging by everybody’s body language, you don’t have to say too much, I think everyone’s a little bit disappointed and got a feeling that we should have done a little bit better, which is a good thing that the guys realise it themselves,’’ he said
‘‘It was tough. It would have been nicer to have a wee bit less scoreboard pressure. But geez, you’ve got to give it to them the way defended in the back half of that game.’’
Of chief annoyance for the Chiefs was that they almost went from one extreme to the other in trying to fix their problems from the previous week against the Force. They threw too much ball away in that game, so this time they tightened up, but in the end, even conditions considered, went too conservative, while their lineout also misfired, losing four of their 11 throws.
‘‘So hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can find that balance when we need to,’’ Cane said.
‘‘We’re making improvements each week but as we are other parts of our game seem to be dropping off as we focus onto another.’’
Perhaps what went up had to come down in a sense, with the Chiefs having started so well with their three local derby wins, before a seemingly never-ending stretch against overseas opposition - which concludes against the Reds in New Plymouth on Saturday night.
That precedes the team’s second bye, then the hosting in Fiji of the currently unbeaten Crusaders, who have a four-point lead in the New Zealand conference, with the Chiefs second, four ahead of the Hurricanes, who have a game in hand.
Cane admitted there was indeed challenges getting up for these non-derby matches, where the expectations are always for a Kiwi victory.
‘‘You’d like to think that you could get up every week, but the reality of sport is the sub-conscious mind can sometimes play tricks on players, no matter how much you try and divert that and not pay attention to it,’’ he said.
‘‘It feels like we’re doing the work during the week so the key is not to get too frustrated and hopefully we’ll see some transfer from the way we’re training.
‘‘We’re still putting points on the table, and we’ve just got to keep moving forward.
‘‘We’re at that halfway point of the comp, it’d be nice to start building some momentum coming in the back half of it though.’’
The Chiefs will bring several rested players back into the mix for the match against the Reds, while Tawera Kerr-Barlow is set to be right to return from concussion, Tim Nanai-Williams should be back from his shoulder injury and Johnny Fa’auli’s suspension will have been served.