Chiefs co-captain Brad Weber hoped his side would meet the Crusaders in the final. Photo / Photosport
Chiefs co-captain Brad Weber hoped his side would meet the Crusaders in the final. Photo / Photosport
Now that they’re in the Super Rugby Pacific final, the Chiefs will admit that it was the Crusaders they wanted to be meeting.
Both sides had work to do to get there, but after the Chiefs beat the Brumbies and the Crusaders bashed the Blues, the Chiefs have got theirwish.
For the best part of the last decade, the Crusaders have been the team at the top of the heap. Adding titles to their collection in each of the last six years, it’s been a remarkable period of dominance.
But that era comes to an end on Saturday night as several players, as well as coaches Scott Robertson and Scott Hansen, are set to move on to the next stage of their careers.
It’s a similar story for the Chiefs, who have built their way from a team who couldn’t win a game in 2020′s Super Rugby Aotearoa competition to one that has been almost unbeatable this year.
They’ll also see several players write the next chapter of their careers elsewhere in 2024. Among them, halfback Brad Weber, who said it was rather poetic how things had played out.
“I wouldn’t have admitted it [on Friday], but I’m pretty happy that the Crusaders got through,” Weber said after the Chiefs’ 19-6 win over the Brumbies on Saturday night. “They’ve been the benchmark for what feels like all of my career, and we want what they’ve got and what they’ve had. It’s a bit poetic that we get to have a crack at the champs, the benchmark.
“If you want to be the best you’ve got to beat the best so no better team to test ourselves and really prove that we deserve to be champs.”
It was a sentiment echoed by coach Clayton McMillan.
“Yeah, if I’ll be perfectly honest,” he said when asked if he had hoped it would be a Chiefs v Crusaders final. “The Crusaders have been the benchmark and if somebody’s going to knock them off, I want it to be us.”
Chiefs co-captain Brad Weber hoped his side would meet the Crusaders in the final. Photo / Photosport
In the last two years the Crusaders have ended the Chiefs’ hopes of hoisting some silverware; beating them in the 2021 Super Rugby Aotearoa final and knocking them out in the Super Rugby Pacific semifinals last year.
Both of those games were played in Christchurch, so the Chiefs will be buoyed by the fact Saturday night’s final will be contested in Hamilton, earning hosting rights by finishing at the top of the table in the regular season - an impressive run which included two wins over the Crusaders.
But the Chiefs are well aware of the challenge that will be coming to meet them. Despite injuries to a host of key players, the Crusaders made a statement by embarrassing the Blues in a 52-15 rout in the semifinal.
While the scoreline wasn’t so attractive, the Chiefs were impressive in their win over the Brumbies, a match where although they came under pressure at times, their defence never really looked like cracking.
In a similar situation to their quarter-final against the Reds, the Chiefs had to grind away before being able to put the result to bed in the final 10 minutes, and those sorts of games will serve them well as they approach the one that matters most.
“There’s been times over the last few years where we would have fallen away and lost those sorts of games,” McMillan said.
“We enter every game wanting to entertain and score lots of tries, but the reality is history tells us that semifinals, finals, they go down to the wire. Winning and losing is often based on a couple of moments, and the fact that over the last few weeks we’ve been able to win the moments that really matter, gives us a lot of confidence.”
