Editorial: Chiefs fought hard to win nation's backing

Dave Rennie. Photo / Christine Cornege

Opinion

Team aiming to join select few as repeat winners

The Super 15 is a long, hard slog, especially for New Zealand teams that have to play each other twice on the road to the play-offs. Only the toughest can reach the final and the Chiefs are there for a second successive year.

All of the country is behind them tonight as they bid to be "B2B", back-to-back champions.

That has been their motto since February when they set out to prove that last season's triumph was more than a flash in the pan.

In all the years of Super rugby, only a few teams have won the trophy and they have usually won it more than once. The Blues had a reign, then the Crusaders. The Bulls and the Brumbies are multiple winners, too.

If the Chiefs win tonight, they will join that select company.

They have won the hometown advantage and they face a Brumbies team that had to travel to South Africa for a semifinal last weekend.

Both teams upset the semifinal predictions, especially the Chiefs who had been dazed by the Crusaders two weeks earlier.

Somehow Dave Rennie and his fellow coaches pulled the team together and found a way to contain the Crusaders last Saturday. It was not pretty but it had character.

The Chiefs lost some fine players to injury during this long campaign. They have had to come through as a team, well motivated by Rennie, well led by Craig Clarke.

They are playing for all New Zealand tonight. Go Chiefs!