KEY POINTS:
If there was despair across the nation at the prospect of losing both Dan Carter and Nick Evans, some of it lifted around 9.30pm last Friday.
That was about the time Stephen Donald delivered the most mature 80-minute performance of his career.
He's had some memorable nights in
the past where, as he did two weeks ago against the Brumbies, he's cut loose, found holes and drawn out the best in those around him.
But his performance against the Crusaders was more reassuring for the simple reason he used traditional skills to dominate the opposition.
"He played some great attacking rugby two weeks ago against the Brumbies," said Chiefs coach Ian Foster, "and he played a different sort of game today but that was called for by the circumstances.
"He showed good control and he showed a couple of extra touches to his game that perhaps people wouldn't know he had."
What made it particularly special was that the pressure was on. The Chiefs needed the win to stay in contention, their season was on a knife-edge.
There was a full-house. Expectation was at bursting point and then of course there was the calibre of the opposition.
It was a night for reputations to be made or broken and Donald did much to shatter the perception he's a quality operator only up to a point.
The situation with Carter and Evans is so desperate precisely because there are fears Donald and the other contenders, like his opposite on Friday night, Stephen Brett, are not yet ready for test football.
Opinion should be changing about Donald. His was a commanding performance. His tactical kicking was first class. His decision-making, one horrid pass early in the second half aside, was good and he pulled off a few clever tricks for good measure to be rightfully judged man-of-the-match.
It was the sort of controlled, patient performance that will have the All Black selectors watching closely, hoping to see more of the same in the coming weeks.
And Donald, after a sluggish start, is growing in confidence that he can make authoritative his default performance mode.
"My early form might have been reflected in the performance of the team and maybe my slow start hindered us a bit," he reckoned.
"I took confidence from the fact the same thing happened last year. The great thing about Fozzie [Foster] is that he has kept faith in me.
"He kept backing me when probably no one else in the country was. I came out in the first few rounds and because I had enjoyed a pretty good year in 2007, I thought I would just take off. Play to a pretty high level straight away.
'I had to strip that back and say right, 'you are just going to go out there and do your job'."
The 24-year-old was reluctant to accept too much praise for his efforts. Even the concession from Brett who said: "Stephen won the battle tonight. He played well, he chipped well, he ran the forwards around and kept them moving around the field,"
Donald shrugged this praise off a bit. The way Donald saw it, he had a much easier ride because of the dominant work of his forwards. Which was true, but even allowing for the platform, Donald pushed himself ahead of Brett in the queue of aspirant No 10s.
Brett was making his first start in five weeks and it was also his first outing of the season at first five.
He had to contend with a rushing Chiefs defence and was hampered further by the lack of big game, experienced players outside him.
It was little wonder, then, that his game included some errors that would be most fairly attributed to a combination of his inexperience and the pressure he was under.
His biggest mistake was a pass inside his 22 to reserve wing Kade Poki who was hammered by Sitiveni Sivivatu. To balance that out, he made some darting probes and was always aware of where the space was.
Brett left Hamilton in no doubt what he needs to work on this week: "I needed to take more of a leadership role. I have got to get back into the rhythm of it and it will take more than one game. Hopefully against the Blues, a lot of the rust will be off."
