At a glance
New prop reveals secret to Chiefs’ big scrum turnaround
New Chiefs prop Sione Mafileo has lifted the lid on the secret to the team’s stunning scrummaging transformation, saying some of the players had been trying to do too much of their own thing rather than working as a pack.
In mirroring the side’s remarkable change in fortunes with now a place in next weekend’s Super Rugby Aotearoa final secure thanks to five wins on the bounce, it was the team’s last defeat where the scrum hit rock bottom.
That night in Christchurch, in the 39-17 round-three defeat to the Crusaders, proved the catalyst, coach Clayton McMillan has said, for sorting out a scrum he described as getting ‘‘destroyed’’ and was ‘‘embarrassing’’.
The fix was ultra quick, seemingly a switch flicked against the Hurricanes in Wellington the following weekend and the big men won a couple of crucial set-piece moments. Even more remarkable was to come the following weekend against the Blues in Hamilton, when a rather unheralded home bunch did a real number on the muchfancied visiting big boys.
And so it has continued on this winning streak, right down to the final moments of last weekend’s win over the Hurricanes, when the Chiefs won their ultimately matchwinning penalty.
The man who was at the centre of that penalty win – on the Chiefs’ tighthead side against Canes loosehead Pouri Rakete-Stones – was Mafileo, and he told Stuff this week just how they’d managed to pick up the pieces from that fateful night in the Garden City.
‘‘That week after, we just felt like we were better than that,’’ the 128kg, 28-year-old said, going on to praise the work of a scrum coach who is just four weeks post a second hip replacement.
What: Super Rugby Aotearoa, Blues v Chiefs
Where: Eden Park, Auckland
When: Tonight, 7.05pm
Referee: Mike Fraser
TAB odds: Blues $1.25, Chiefs $3.70
Blues: Zarn Sullivan, Bryce Heem, Rieko Ioane, (cc), Tanielu Tele’a, Caleb Clarke, Otere Black, Finlay Christie, Hoskins Sotutu, Adrian Choat, Tom Robinson (cc), Sam Darry, Gerard Cowley-Tuioti, Nepo Laulala, Kurt Eklund, Karl Tu’inukuafe. Reserves: Soane Vikena, Ofa Tuungafasi, Marcel Renata, Josh Goodhue, Akira Ioane, Sam Nock, Harry Plummer, AJ Lam.
Chiefs: Kaleb Trask, Bailyn Sullivan, Sean Wainui (c), Rameka Poihipi, Shaun Stevenson, Bryn Gatland, Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi, Pita Gus Sowakula, Zane Kapeli, Viliami Taulani, Josh Lord, Samipeni Finau, Sione Mafileo, Bradley Slater, Ollie Norris. Reserves: Nathan Harris, Ezekiel Lindenmuth, Joe Apikotoa, Liam Messam, Tom Florence, Xavier Roe, Rivez Reihana, Gideon Wrampling.
‘‘Nick White has been outstanding in pushing us and giving us a few drills.
‘‘I think it’s just working with individuals, on what they need to work on . . . having someone there with you and go through it individually throughout the week early in the morning ... he’s real good at bringing us together and trying to work on our own game before we get into the main training.
‘‘And I think the boys have been gelling pretty well.’’
That gelling is not something to be underestimated, it seems, as Mafileo – one of the standout props in last year’s NPC with a dominant North Harbour eight – feels the Chiefs forwards are now actually all on the same page as one another, having been guilty of scrummaging as individuals too much in those opening two games.
‘‘Maybe we weren’t engaged as much,’’ he said. ‘‘A couple of us were doing our own little thing. But I think it was more just gelling in, it was only our second game in, we just needed more game time with each other to have a feel what could be. More than anything, it’s just everybody’s buying into what we want to do, and what we want to achieve in the scrum.
‘‘Obviously it’s not just the guys at the front. We look good there, but the back five, they are the ones that we rely on to get us through.’’
While he and his team-mates sported bruised egos from ‘that’ night in Christchurch, Mafileo was also left with bone bruising on his back, which saw him require an injection and miss the next three games, returning by way of club footy for North Shore.
‘‘It’s always a niggly thing for front rowers, the lower back, but I’m happy I got it sorted real early and I’m feeling good now,’’ he said, following two 10-minute stints off the bench the past two weeks.
Now, tonight, Mafileo will get his first start since the season-opener against the Highlanders, when he gets to pack down against his former side, the Blues, at Eden Park.
After six seasons with the Auckland team, an opportunity presented itself for Mafileo to move south, in what was a virtual swap with All Black Nepo Laulala, and he signed a two-year deal at a Chiefs club where his younger brother, Tevita, had played as an injury replacement in 2019.
Having been sidelined when the teams met in Hamilton last month, it’s a clash Mafileo is licking his lips for, getting to pack down against great Harbour mate ‘‘big Karl’’ [Tu’inukuafe], who he rates as ‘‘one of the best scrummagers in the world’’.
‘‘He’s the enemy on Saturday.’’
In order to succeed as a professional footballer, plenty has to go your way. For Ben Waine to get his first run of matches this A-League season, it took injuries to two teammates, as well as a suspension for a third, and for him to get his second run, it took more injuries on top of that.
But before those opportunities came along, and before he seized them, scoring six goals, including four in the Wellington Phoenix’s last four matches, he first had the good fortune of finding the perfect mentor on their staff.
Chris Greenacre coached the club’s reserve side in 2017, when Waine was just 16 and making his first appearances in New Zealand’s old national league, and over the past four years he’s played a big hand in helping the young forward grow.
Would Waine, now 19, have flourished had he not had an experienced player in the same position – one who played almost 300 games in England’s League One and almost 100 in the Championship – to learn from?
No-one will ever know – but it’s certainly a relationship the teenager has cherished, and one he reflected on this week.
‘‘I watched him play when I was a kid, then when I joined the academy and started playing reserve football he was my coach for a short period of time before he got promoted to the first team, so we’ve had a relationship since then.
‘‘Because he’s a striker and I’m a striker, we’ve had the same feelings about games and we’ve been through the same things, though obviously I haven’t experienced as much as Greenie has.
‘‘He’s always helping me with finishing after training, he’s always talking to me and making sure I’m all right, even on a personal level, with how the family is and stuff like that. To be able to work with him and improve my shooting, my holdup play, basics like that – it’s awesome.’’
Greenacre arrived at the Phoenix from Tranmere Rovers as a player in 2009 and has remained there ever since, taking on a variety of coaching roles since his retirement in 2012.
But while he is quick to note he is not the only coach who has had a part to play in getting Waine to where he is now, his work with the young striker might just be his most important contribution to the club yet.
The irony is that Waine never scored while playing for Greenacre in the reserves, but as the coach points out, that wasn’t what was important back then.
‘‘I didn’t care too much about the performances,’’ Greenacre said.
‘‘It was more about exposing these kids to the rigours of adult football and men’s football, where you’ll have one or two tackles on you that are a little bit naughty, and you’ll have to learn how to use your body, and you’ll be bullied.
‘‘It’s a tough environment, but what it does is in the long run, it prepares you for senior football and when you watch players like Ben, they start to grow.
‘‘I remember myself when I was coming through the ranks at Manchester City, I went on loan on a number of occasions, and I was playing in the football league, and I wasn’t really scoring goals.
‘‘You’re working on other aspects of your game, the physicality of the game, and the endurance side of the game, being able to get around the field, and you find that your goals tally suffers.’’
It took Waine more than 21 hours to score in the national league, but that goal – against Tasman United in November, 2018, – was the first of 15 he has scored at that level in the 26 hours since.
Once he started scoring goals in senior football he came on the radar of New Zealand under20 coach Des Buckingham, who called him up for a camp in February, 2019, and was impressed first with his work rate, then, after a closer look at the tape, with the quality of his runs.
His Phoenix debut soon followed, then came a callup from Buckingham for the Fifa Under-20 World Cup, where he scored twice in New Zealand’s opening match against Honduras and his trademark celebratory smile was on full display.
Chris Greenacre, above, on Ben Waine
Atwo-year professional contract with the Phoenix came after that, and he also played his part as the OlyWhites qualified for the Tokyo Olympics later that year – an event he is firmly in the mix to attend this July.
But while he scored his first Phoenix goal early on in the 2019-20 season, he barely featured as that campaign dragged on and – as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic – ultimately finished in August last year.
He then played in just two of the Phoenix’s first seven matches this season – once for 20 minutes, once in stoppage time – but when Tomer Hemed and Jaushua Sotirio both suffered injuries at the same time and David Ball was suspended, he knew it was a case of now or potentially never.
‘‘When that happened, I could sense something coming,’’ Waine said this week. ‘‘But that was a big moment where I was trying not to put too much pressure on myself – at the end of the day, if it comes, it comes and if it happens, it happens.
‘‘I was just making sure I didn’t change anything in my routine and that I was doing the same things dayin, day-out and then when I got the chance, it was just about making sure I did the best I possibly could.’’
In his first two starts, Waine didn’t fire a shot. In the two that followed, he scored with his only shots of the match. But after dropping out of the starting XI when the injured players returned, then returning to it, when Hemed was injured again, he has started to make a serious impact.
He has scored a winner as well as three opening goals in the team’s last four matches, when they have picked up 10 points and are mounting a late push for the playoffs. ‘‘As games have come for Ben, you can see that his confidence has grown,’’ Greenacre said.
‘‘All the little bits of different attributes he’s got are all starting to tie together now. He’s not a complete player by any stretch of the imagination. He still has a lot of work to do. But that will come with experience.’’
Waine has made most of his shots count so far this season, and will be looking to become the first Phoenix player to score in five consecutive matches when they play Brisbane Roar away tonight.
He now has seven A-League goals to his name in the 1120 minutes he’s played before his 20th birthday – a record that compares well with how some of the competition’s most prolific scorers started off – but there’s little chance of him getting carried away. Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay has been protective of Waine over the past fortnight, wary of him being overhyped in the media, but said yesterday that nothing had changed despite his recent success. ‘‘He keeps himself very grounded.’’
‘‘All the little bits of different attributes he’s got are all starting to tie together now.’’