Chiefs to face the Blues in Te Kuiti
The Chiefs are taking a Super Rugby pre-season match to Te Kuiti, where they’ll face the Blues in their opening hitout of next year.
The local rivals will take to the Rugby Park ground on Friday, February 2, with kickoff scheduled at 4pm.
It will be the first chance for new coach Colin Cooper to see his troops in action.
The Brisbane Global Tens will follow on February 9-10, then another pre-season fixture which has yet to be confirmed, ahead of the Chiefs’ competition opener against the defending champion Crusaders in Christchurch on February 24.
Having played warmup matches in various spots around their region in previous years, this will be the first time the Chiefs have ventured to Te Kuiti.
The club said it was an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution rural New Zealand had played in shaping the national sport.
Farmlands Co-operative have teamed up to put on the fixture - which they are dubbing the Farmlands Rural Legends Shield, following the same theme as the Farmlands Rural Cup they are hosting for a second successive year in the game between the Highlanders and Crusaders in Waimumu on February 15.
After playing their pre-season games in Rotorua and Pukekohe in 2016 the Chiefs didn’t play one at home this year.
Instead, they faced the Bulls in Brisbane ahead of the Tens, then the Blues in Auckland.
The club, who last week announced former prop Michael Collins as their new chief executive, and who have had Cooper officially in his new job for a fortnight, will have the majority of their 38-man squad assemble next Monday for a three-week block of pre-Christmas training.