Hurricanes v Chiefs
Wellington, tonight 7.35
If you're a keen follower of the Chiefs, get used to traversing an 80-minute roller-coaster of emotions.
Ahead of their derby against the Hurricanes in Wellington tonight, coach Ian Foster said the nature of their squad mitigated against them being the most clinical side in the competition.
When they get
it right they're close to the most exciting, though.
"In some ways it is the make-up of the Chiefs. We're a group with a lot of attacking players and the hardest thing is to get the balance - when you're able to make that offload and when to try to speed up your attack," Foster said. "We're a team that makes a lot of line breaks and sometimes when you do that, it does stress your ability to keep your structure. Clearly we didn't do that too well in the first two rounds.
"We're creating opportunities and against the Rebels we finally drilled the patience side of it. We were a lot more clinical."
Foster said the most frustrating thing about the opening fortnight of the Super 15 was that his side had got themselves into position to win against the Brumbies and Highlanders. Individual mistakes with points on offer had cost them.
"At the end of the day they were two away games and we're only up to round four, but it was certainly nice to get on the board and get a good result against the Rebels."
That's been acknowledged in the selection of tonight's side, with the injury-enforced selection of Tim Nanai-Williams at fullback the only change to the starting XV.
"There was probably a little too much read into changes," Foster said of the vastly different line-ups that appeared in the first three rounds. "Between rounds one and two, we had a number of small injuries combined with the issues of a six-day turnaround with lots of travel.
"You can read into it that we are rewarding that group of players for the progress made in round three."
One area that has avoided scrutiny has been the set-piece. Given the number of internationals the Chiefs have and how few of them are in the tight five, one might assume opponents would attack their set-piece.
"We had the upper hand at scrum time against the Brumbies [and against] the Highlanders ... and that continued against the Rebels. At the lineouts, from a stats perspective, we're very strong," Foster said.
"We've got a good tight five, but it's up to us to keep proving we have a forward pack that is going to keep getting us into good positions."
Hurricanes
Cory Jane
Julian Savea
Conrad Smith
Jayden Hayward
Andre Taylor
Aaron Cruden
Chris Eaton
Victor Vito
Serge Lilo
Jack Lam
Jason Eaton
James Broadhurst
Neemia Tialata
Andrew Hore (c)
John Schwalger
Reserves: Dane Coles, Anthony Perenise, Mark Reddish, Faifili Levave, Tyson Keats, Daniel Kirkpatrick, Charlie Ngatai.
Chiefs
Tim Nanai-Williams
Lelia Masaga
Dwayne Sweeney
Tana Umaga
Sitiveni Sivivatu
Stephen Donald
Brendon Leonard
Liam Messam (c)
Tanerau Latimer
Scott Waldrom
Isaac Ross
Craig Clarke
Nathan White
A. Malmanche
Ben May
Reserves: Hika Elliot, Sona Taumalolo, Romana Graham, Fritz Lee, Taniela Moa, Mike Delany, Jackson Willison.
