Decisions, decisions for Chiefs

Selection headache for coaches ahead of big showdown

Chiefs assistant coach Neil Barnes said the team for Saturday night’s Super Rugby Aotearoa final was the most difficult to select of any during his six years at the club.

All will be publicly revealed tomorrow afternoon, but in fronting media at training yesterday, forwards coach Barnes said the way the baby Chiefs performed against the Blues last Saturday had made for some tough calls for the decider against the Crusaders in Christchurch this weekend.

In resting 11 frontline players for their dead rubber final-round match, coach Clayton McMillan had said there were ‘‘probably seven’’ spots up for grabs in the 23 for the final.

While his makeshift lineup eventually went down 39-19 at Eden Park, they were right in it till late on and gave the coaching staff the selection headache they desired going into the big one.

‘‘It would be, honestly, the most challenging selection I’ve been involved with, and I’ve been here six years,’’ Barnes said.

‘‘Trust me, it was full on. So it was good, they are good issues to have. Those young players challenged awesomely well. Two or three of them, man, it was hard not to put them in the side.’’

Adding to the good problems for the coaches is that lock Naitoa Ah Kuoi, loose forward Luke Jacobson and utility back Chase Tiatia are now all available for selection following their concussions.

Barnes said lock/loose forward Samipeni Finau and winger/centre Sean Wainui were ‘‘borderline’’ due to injuries picked up against the Blues, but that midfielder Alex Nankivell is expected to play despite a broken finger.

‘‘It would be the most challenging selection I’ve been involved with, and I’ve been here six years.’’ Neil Barnes Chiefs assistant coach

Whether 37-year-old Liam Messam gets to add another chapter after his remarkable return last weekend remains to be seen, but in any case Barnes said the 180-game veteran, along with injured skipper Sam Cane, had already been instrumental in imparting their big-game experience on the squad.

The Chiefs go in as underdogs against a Crusaders juggernaut looking for a fifth straight Super title, though the Chiefs came up trumps in their last meeting, winning 26-25 in Hamilton three weeks ago.

Barnes said while they should be able to find things from that game which they could utilise again, any talk about that particular fixture was long gone.

‘‘All the other games give you is a confidence that they’re beatable,’’ he said.

‘‘They’re a formidable team when it comes to finals, we know that, so we respect that.

‘‘But by the same token, we’ve worked really hard to give ourselves a chance, and we’ll be going down there to put our best foot forward and we won’t die wondering.

‘‘You’ve got to match them in their set piece, they get a fair bit of leverage from it, so we’ll put a fair bit of effort into that. But at the end of the day you’ve got to play your own game as well.

‘‘If you spend too much time worrying about them you forget what you’re doing, so we’ve got a game plan, we’re going to go down there and pull the trigger and give it a go, and we’ll see what happens.’’

Meanwhile, the Chiefs made a point of contacting NZ Rugby referees boss Bryce Lawrence in the wake of a couple of controversial no-try TMO decisions against the Blues.

‘‘There’s been discussions between us and the referee fraternity,’’ Barnes said.

‘‘There’s some points that we still beg to differ, there’s other points where we have clarity now, so there’s been a bit of give and take on both sides. I’ll leave it to them to make all those comments.’’

Via an NZR spokesman, Lawrence confirmed to that the Bailyn Sullivan double movement call was correct, as was the Shaun Stevenson-Kaleb Trask accidental offside.

However, Lawrence said the Blues should have lost their captain’s referral for the latter incident, with Blues skipper Tom Robinson having only asked for the officials to check for a knock on.