Chiefs may choose to lose upcoming battle to win war
It is going to be a peculiar two weeks for the Chiefs and Hurricanes as they will inevitably face each other in consecutive games where only the outcome in the second will matter.
It creates a genuine battle of wits between the respective coaching staff where selection and strategy will be the keys to determining which of the two teams makes the last four.
How this plays out essentially comes down to whether the Chiefs believe they need to win the battle this week to win the war next.
Do they need to go all out this week to try to win by the requisite 24-point margin that will see them flip places with the Hurricanes and host the quarter-final next week?
Or are they willing to concede that going all out this week and showing their hand potentially leaves them vulnerable next week and the smarter play is to be preparing now for a likely quarter-final in Wellington?
It’s a big call for coach Colin Cooper to make. But he has been around for an age and experienced enough to assess the risk of chasing glory at all costs this week is not justified by the reward.
Hence, the expectation is that the Chiefs will try to hedge their bets by picking a weakened side this week and give them a licence to chase the game hard and to take attacking risks in a quest to accelerate the scoreboard and leave the Hurricanes guessing about who and what they will face the following week.
They can take risks because it won’t matter if they lose — there needs to be a 110-point turnaround in the differential for them to trade places with the sixth-placed Highlanders — and winning by less than 24 points leaves them in the same place as well.
By sending out a team minus Sam Cane, who is still not quite right after a head knock, Damian McKenzie, who is being rested as part of the agreement with the All Blacks that test players should sit out two games, and Sean Wainui, who has a shoulder problem, the Chiefs can retain an element of mystery about how they will set themselves up for the playoff game.
They may even make a few more changes this week to ensure there is an injection of energy next week and to give them greater potential to reconfigure tactically and structurally.
Not everyone will agree this is the way to go. There’s one school of thought which says they should stuff the agreement with the All Blacks, which is non-binding, play McKenzie and throw the kitchen sink at the Hurricanes to win home advantage.
But the Chiefs have won two away quarter-finals since 2016 and presumably have a significant degree of confidence in their ability to get the job done in Wellington.
Two other things are no doubt encouraging them in that regard.
The first is that the Hurricanes have a notoriously poor record in knockout football.
Between 1996 and 2014, they played five semifinals and won only once. When they did make the 2006 final, they lost and then again in 2015, when they had home advantage in the title-decider.
More significantly, the Hurricanes still aren’t playing that well. They beat the Chiefs earlier in the year but they aren’t playing with the same unstructured freedom and flow as they were.
They have clammed up, while the Chiefs, who will welcome back Brodie Retallick this week, have found some confidence and momentum and may be convinced they can afford to lose this upcoming battle to win the war.