Chiefs dig deep to grab win

Somewhere in the dark old book of sporting cliches you’ll find the one that reads: ‘‘A win is a win’’.

And for the Chiefs, their 15-9 Super Rugby victory over the Stormers in Cape Town yesterday was just that. By no means pretty, but just the desperately required result, as they keep themselves in the mix in the hotly contested Kiwi conference.

Coach Colin Cooper was ‘‘extremely proud’’ of the performance, as his banged-up team had endured the 30-hour travel factor then found the bounce back they needed in the wake of their shock home loss to the Jaguares by putting in a superb showing up front to hand the Stormers their first home loss of the season.

A week after conceding their own vital penalty try, this time, ironically under the same referee – Mike Fraser – it was the Chiefs who had an automatic seven-pointer their way. It proved the difference, giving them a lead 15 minutes from time which they didn’t look like relinquishing.

It was just reward for the massive scrum shunt, as the visitors continued to spurn shots at goal and let Karl Tu’inukuafe and Angus Ta’avao do the talking.

‘‘It was a strong set piece. Guys really stepped up in our scrum to dominate and get that penalty try,’’ Cooper said of a team whose four front-rowers in the match were not even contracted at season’s start but are doing a more than useful job.

Cooper demands plenty out of his leaders, and that with co-captain Sam Cane back home due to an abdominal strain, he was delighted with the way various experienced heads keep responding.

‘‘When you’ve got leaders that walk the talk, and demand it, they give the younger ones confidence. Brodie Retallick was barking at the team before the game, and I sat back and watched all those young men grow, just from his hard words.

‘‘The boys dug deep, I was really proud of the effort. There was a lot of Chiefs mana coming through in the way we defended and the way we won that game. It was a fantastic win.’’

Just don’t bother nominating it anywhere near a match-of-the-year contender, because, despite lovely conditions, both sides were guilty of ordinary handling and execution.

‘‘It was like a game of chess,’’ Cooper said. ‘‘Both teams were desperate to win, both teams wanted to do better on the points table, so it created that type of game.’’

The Stormers now drop to last in the South African conference, while the Chiefs are where they started the weekend – fourth in the New Zealand group, one point back from the Highlanders, now 10 behind the Hurricanes and still 11 off the Crusaders, the latter having played one extra game.

Now it’s a stern challenge in Durban against the Sharks – a fixture which had loomed large on the calendar because the Chiefs will be without all their All Blacks due to a national camp, but one which Cooper said hadn’t been used as motivation ahead of this latest effort.

‘‘I hadn’t spoken about the Sharks, it’s all been Stormers. It’s all been disappointment and learning from the Jaguares loss, I think that gave us an edge to win this game.’’

They will be hugely undermanned, but Cooper felt the victory would have given his team a lot of self belief, while there were no injuries he was aware of coming out of it.

Hooker Liam Polwart was a late scratching from the bench, replaced by Samisoni Taukei’aho, but Cooper said that was just a preference to keep him fresh and get more minutes under Taukei’aho’s belt.