Richard Loe: Chiefs will succeed with simplicity

Dave Rennie. Photo / Christine Cornege.

To see the Chiefs play as well as they did on Friday night shouldn't really have been a surprise to anyone.

I thought they were looking okay in the first half of their opening game against the Highlanders until they were hit by a raft of injuries and that caused them to panic. You see that even at international level - a team suffers a few injuries and the players on the field suddenly start panicking and not thinking about what they should be doing.

Chiefs coach Dave Rennie will have had the chance during the week to tell his team that there is no need to dwell on it or worry about the personnel they have lost - the new men coming in can all pass and catch the ball and nothing changes.

It was evident that Rennie and assistant coach Tom Coventry had got that point across and also the need for the tight five in particular to focus on doing the basics well enough to ensure there was enough of a platform to bring the backline into the game.

Much has been made of the Chiefs tight five - that they aren't good enough or tough enough to survive at this level. But I disagree. I don't think they are the best unit in the competition and won't be able to dominate the best packs. But they don't need to.

A hallmark of Rennie's teams is the way they keep things simple. Take the 20-year-old prop Ben Tameifuna who was making his Super Rugby debut against the Blues. I thought he did quite well and that's because all he was asked to do was push in the scrums and lift in the lineout.

He was able to keep the scrum steady. The ball came out well enough so there was an opportunity for the backs to do something with it. And that's all that was required. The Chiefs just needed to make sure they were physical enough to provide some kind of platform at the set-piece and then mobile enough to get to the tackled ball and protect possession.

It was the same with big lock Brodie Retallick. I know a wee bit about Brodie because he was at Christchurch Boys' High School and I saw him play First XV on a few occasions. He looked like a boy in a man's body back then and he has come a long way since he left school.

Again, he's been asked to scrummage, win a few lineouts, hit a few rucks and carry a couple of times a game if he can. Nothing too demanding - just good execution of the core skills that will help build enough of a platform.

When you look at the talent in their backline, the Chiefs tight five don't need to be dominant. If they can provide 45 per cent or maybe even 40 per cent of possession, then they will be competitive. With Sonny Bill Williams and Richard Kahui, as well as Tawera Kerr-Barlow who was excellent and Tim Nanai-Williams, the capability is there for the Chiefs to score from limited rations.

These guys are exceptionally talented footballers as they showed on Friday night and there was a lot of confidence and belief in the way they played.

Rennie is a smart coach and he won't look for the Chiefs to build more elements into their game just yet - his focus will be trying to sharpen and improve the execution of those basic skills.