Sex appeal has little appeal for McMillan
“We were in a pretty commanding position ... we just lost our way, and it wasn’t good enough.”
Less “sexy stuff”, and more, err, “grind”.
That’s the message from Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan in the wake of his side’s near-fatal finish against the Highlanders.
Boasting a hefty 28-0 advantage an hour into their Super Rugby Pacific clash in Hamilton on Saturday, the hosts not only took the foot off the gas, but damnnear steered their vehicle right off the road, as they were made to cling on for a nerve-racking 28-21 victory.
“Happy to win, but, man it was ugly,” McMillan admitted soon after fulltime at Waikato Stadium.
“It feels like we lost in there [the changing room], really, because we were in a pretty commanding position... we just lost our way, and it wasn’t good enough.”
Facing a Highlanders side which had lost its past 17 Kiwi derbies, McMillan had warned his troops against complacency, and certainly in a first-quarter blitz and cashing in on the 39th-minute red card to Tanielu Tele'a, there did not look to be any. After that, though?
“I don’t know if it was,” McMillan said. “But we just went off the boil. I think we’re a team that, when we’ve got our arses against the wall, we’ve got the ability to be accurate and be urgent and get the job done.
“Then there’s times when we’ve got a bit breathing space, we get a bit carried away with the sexy stuff when we need to just grind.”
The Highlanders, who played for half an hour with 14 men, came away on the right side of some remarkable stat lines. They enjoyed 66% possession and 65% territory, gained 702 metres to 480, beat 45 defenders to 23, made 20 offloads to three, made 67 tackles to 243 and conceded seven penalties to 11.
They gave the home fans quite the fright, as two tries in the final 10 minutes, then an attack in the Chiefs’ 22 after the siren raised the real prospect of golden point.
Crucially for the Chiefs, who made nine clean breaks to seven, their defence stayed strong when it needed to most, as they missed just 45 attempts of their whopping tackle count (84% success) to the Highlanders’ 23 (74%).
Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan
Captain Luke Jacobson, who led the way alongside Bradley Slater, with 21 tackles, said he had full faith in their defence to get the job done, having been made to watch from the sideline for a time after a 66th minute yellow card for a high shot.
“When we were squeaky-clean on our discipline and just let our system do the work, they didn’t really show much, and we had them pretty wrapped-up,” Jacobson said.
“But it was just when we tried to overachieve, had a lick at the ruck, gave away penalties, it really brought them into the game and made them look a lot more dangerous.
“We’ve just got to respond to some messages a little bit better.”
A week after coughing up a bonus point in the final minute against the Fijian Drua, and again letting a golden chance for one slip this time out, McMillan noted it wouldn’t be till the end of the regular season when they would know whether they would “look back on these games and kick yourself in the backside”.
He will try be trying to teach the balance of that “sexy” and “grind”, as his side braces for a Good Friday clash against the beleaguered Crusaders in Christchurch.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he noted. “In our team we’ve got some fantastic players who play instinctively and can cut teams to shreds, so you never want to take that away from any individual, you want them to express themselves.
“But it’s a game of momentum... if you stack negative moments together, which we saw a lot of today, you allow teams to apply pressure to you. So there’s no magic formula, just do what we do well.”
The Chiefs will likely head to the Garden City without All Blacks lock Tupou Vaa’i, who failed an HIA late in Saturday’s game, though still had some follow-up tests to go through.