Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi of the Chiefs celebrates a try against the Crusaders in Suva in June last year. Photo / Getty Images
Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi of the Chiefs celebrates a try against the Crusaders in Suva in June last year. Photo / Getty Images
COMMENT:
Top rugby players and coaches usually remember their significant defeats with more clarity than their victories, so prepare yourselves for what could be the most rambunctious Super Rugby match of the early rounds if not the whole season.
Yes, it's the Chiefs v the Crusaders in Hamilton on Saturday,a fixture rarely without drama or controversy and one which Scott Robertson expects will follow a similar script.
All defeats hurt but some linger more than others. It's why new Chiefs coach Warren Gatland was so aware of what was at stake against the Blues last weekend.
The Chiefs lost the corresponding match in May last year, a result which snapped a 15-game undefeated streak against their rivals up State Highway 1. At the time he was preparing his Wales squad for the World Cup in Japan but on his return to Hamilton his players, particularly his senior men such as Sam Cane and Anton Lienert-Brown, left him in no doubt about the importance of righting what they saw was a significant wrong.
Fortunately for him and the Chiefs, an incredible 32-point comeback orchestrated by Aaron Cruden allowed them to avenge last year's result.
For the Crusaders and Robertson, there is the unfinished business of last June's incredible fixture in Suva where the Crusaders were leading 20-0 in conditions resembling a sauna after as many minutes only to slump to a 40-27 defeat, one of the biggest comebacks in the competition (although not the biggest – the Crusaders hold that honour after coming back from 29-0 down to beat the Waratahs 31-29 in Christchurch in 2018).
The Chiefs have held a special place in the minds of the Crusaders for many years; from the early days when the men from the central North Island weren't that successful in terms of results but knew how to niggle the red and blacks like few others, a talent which went to a new level under Dave Rennie, who instilled in his side a hardness and unwillingness to back down to anyone, and certainly not to what at that point was a fading empire from the South Island.
Crusaders hooker Codie Taylor scores against the Chiefs in March last year. Photo / Photosport
The rivalry turned on its head during those two championship years Rennie's men enjoyed in 2012 and 2013, but last year's victory by the Chiefs in Suva was their first over the Crusaders since 2016.
"For the majority of my time here at the Chiefs we've probably had the wood over the Crusaders," halfback Brad Weber said this week, perhaps choosing to overlook the 57-28 shellacking the Crusaders handed his team in round four in Christchurch last year, a match he started and a result which continued his team's horror start to 2019. All of which made the result of the return match in Suva all the more remarkable.
"I certainly enjoy playing them and I know everyone here does because we certainly try to rise to the occasion of playing the defending champs at the moment," he said. "We're not lacking for motivation."
As Super Rugby limps along in a doomed format which will be overhauled again next year with the Sunwolves culled and every team playing each other in round robin, this is a rivalry which will hopefully never die.
New Zealand Rugby holds such a tight grip on its five franchises in order to keep the All Blacks on top (a policy not without success but not without cost either), the traditional rivalries between Kiwi teams (Auckland and Canterbury, for instance) have all but gone.
