McMillan hails Chiefs’ character
Clayton McMillan had two words for how his side was able to steal victory from the jaws of defeat against the Blues.
‘‘Just character,’’ said a proud Chiefs coach, not long after witnessing the stunning finish to the Battle of the Bombays in Hamilton on Saturday night.
Down four points going into the final minute and staring down the barrel of extending their sevengame home losing streak into new record territory for a Kiwi team, the Chiefs pulled off a miracle, as a Luke Jacobson burst and offload finished with a Damian McKenzie try and a 15-12 win.
It was an unbelievable climax at FMG Stadium Waikato, a week after the Chiefs’ similarly frantic finish against the Hurricanes in Wellington, and one which now all of a sudden has them with an identical 2-2 record to the Blues and right back in the mix at the halfway point of Super Rugby Aotearoa.
The margins are fine in this five-team all-Kiwi comp, all right.
‘‘They’re small when you lose and they’re small when you win,’’ McMillan said. ‘‘I’ve been saying that for a few weeks now, we’ve been on the wrong side of a few things over the first couple of weeks, but happy to be on the right side this week.’’
Having strung together three decent halves of footy, but also three awful ones, McMillan had been calling on something resembling an 80-minute display, and he was finally able to witness one, delighted with the guts shown by a banged-up squad which had 10 players unavailable for this match.
‘‘I thought that was a great 80-minute performance,’’ he said. ‘‘It could easily have gone the other way, but just the tenacity and resilience and the effort that these guys put in, week in, week out, they deserve that result.
‘‘There’s a lot of young guys, and they got put under the blowtorch