KEY POINTS:
Callum Bruce has taken a fair bit of good-natured stick from his teammates this week as the Chiefs prepared for their must-win clash with the Lions.
Bruce twice seemed to have won last week's nail-biter against the Force for his side only for the match to end in
an agonising defeat.
On the first occasion the second five-eighths appeared certain to score a crucial try after the visitors caught the Force napping with a quick lineout, only for Force flanker David Pocock to appear from nowhere to strip the ball from his grasp before he could ground it.
Bruce then recovered to slot a go-ahead drop goal three minutes from time only for a collective frailty to allow Matt Giteau to win it for the Force with a penalty after the final hooter.
"Emotionally, for it to come down to the wire in a game we could have easily wrapped up makes it that much harder," Bruce admitted. "But there are two [games] to go so it would be silly for us to dwell on it for too long."
Laughter, it seems, has been the best medicine, with Bruce copping "a lot of ribbing" over the blown try.
"It is a bit tough when something like that happens but that's rugby I guess. You just move on."
In fairness to Bruce, he did little wrong, and was merely the victim of a brilliant piece of defensive work from Pocock.
"The ball was like a bar of soap at that stage," Bruce said. When I grabbed it she was definitely pretty slippery so I got two hands around it - he did well to pop it out."
Bruce, however, was less than amused with comparisons being drawn with George Gregan's mugging of Jeff Wilson in 1994.
"I don't know if it was that sort of an important game. That game that they played was a bit of a doozey, our one was just Super 14."
Maybe so, but the three competition points that slipped from the Chiefs' grasp would have left them camped in the top four. Instead they are two points off the pace and will now almost certainly need a win in Johannesburg on Sunday morning and then again against the Sharks in Durban next week if they are to qualify for just their second ever finals appearance.
Having had their five-match winning streak snapped, Bruce said the Chiefs needed to boost their skill level and raise the tempo. But patience is still necessary if they are to keep their season alive against the Lions.
Captain Jono Gibbes is back in the selection frame, with the Chiefs team to be named this morning. The Chiefs will almost certainly go with their strongest possible line-up despite the Sharks looming as a much tougher prospect than the bottom-placed Lions.
"This is a must-win game for us and we are not looking any further ahead," assistant coach Craig Stevenson said. "If we want to stay in this competition we need to win this game. That is our sole focus."