Sleep tight, tight five your crusade is still on
The Chiefs will close their eyes and try to shut out any thoughts of the arduous travel schedule they’re on, ahead of a blockbuster Super Rugby semifinal against the Crusaders in Christchurch.
After holding tough to beat the Stormers 17-11 in an error-ridden quarterfinal in Cape Town yesterday morning, the Chiefs ensured hopes are still alive of ending this golden era for the franchise in the ultimate fashion, with coach Dave Rennie and the rest of the departing crew not done with quite yet.
But while the Chiefs earned themselves a trip back to New Zealand, things don’t get much tougher than taking on the highflying Crusaders, who put on a wet-weather clinic in their 17-0 shutout of the Highlanders in their quarterfinal at home on Saturday night.
Having already made the long trek to South Africa at late notice, the Chiefs will now face a crippling schedule which sees them return to Hamilton around 2am tomorrow, before a flight to Christchurch on Friday for Saturday night’s encounter, which will be their third semifinal match-up with the Crusaders in six years.
Those previous two clashes were narrow victories in Hamilton in 2012 and 2013, as the Chiefs made their way to their maiden, then back-to-back, titles. This will be something else altogether, though, mirroring what was too big an ask last year, when they hammered the Stormers in Cape Town but then couldn’t fire a shot in the semifinal against eventual champs the Hurricanes.
Of course then there’s also a final to consider, either in Wellington or, heaven forbid for the Chiefs, Johannesburg, depending on the result of the second semifinal between the Lions and Hurricanes on Sunday morning.
But, as Rennie’s time nears completion, the simple mindset for the Chiefs is to embrace what’s in front of them.
‘‘We know it’s a big challenge, but in the end, if you don’t win your conference you end up doing a lot of travel,’’ he said.
‘‘We’re excited. Obviously it’s down to four teams now, it’s where we want to be, we wanted to be in contention with a couple of weeks to go.
‘‘We’ve got a great group of men. They work hard for each other and they’re very tight. And that’s a massive part of creating a culture, that you can call on in tight fixtures.
‘‘We’re going to come home and make sure we did a better job than last year.’’
Despite a previously perfect record on return from South Africa (and Argentina) under Rennie’s watch, the extra intensity of playoffs footy and the added step of domestic travel was thrown in when they exited in limp fashion with that 25-9 defeat at the Cake Tin last year. Rennie said they would be able to take lessons after being in the same position again.
‘‘When you don’t win you start looking at everything you did,’’ he said. ‘‘Did we make the guys sluggish by too much analysis, and so on and so on.
‘‘We probably won’t spend an enormous amount of time on the grass but we’ll make sure we’ve got clarity and go down there and give it a real crack.’’
Rennie said the medical team were looking closely at the best times to schedule trainings this week so everyone can get their bodies back in sync quickly.
‘‘So there’s a lot of things that we’re talking about,’’ he said.
‘‘But in the end we won’t be talking about the fact that it’s difficult to fly over here and fly straight back and perform well - we haven’t got an option. So we’ll talk positively about what we need
to do, and hopefully we’ll be fizzing on Saturday.’’
Well below their clinical best in Cape Town - relying on four Damian McKenzie penalties then eventually crossing the line in the 76th minute through fresh-on-thepark Shaun Stevenson - the Chiefs will need to up their accuracy in order to break down the Kiwi conference winners.
‘‘Obviously we’ve got a huge amount of respect for the Crusaders, I thought their pack was incredibly dominant again [against the Highlanders] and that’s going to be a challenge for us,’’ Rennie said. ‘‘But we’ve got a pretty good pack.’’
Midfielder Charlie Ngatai is considered a chance to return for the semifinal, having done some running on his injured ankle during the week. There were no injury concerns to come out of the quarterfinal, with Stephen Donald said to have been OK to return to the park, having left after a superb 62 minutes with a cut to the face.