Super Rugby Pacific: Sam Cane laments Chiefs poor ball security in loss to Brumbies as race to playoffs heats up

Sam Cane. Photo / Photosport

Live by the offload; die by the offload. It's a risk any team looking to play a free-running brand of rugby will take.

But while risk brings reward, it also brings consequences. In the Chiefs' 38-28 loss to the Brumbies in Hamilton on Saturday night, they got the latter.

"It's a bit of a double-edged sword because it's a real strength of our game and it can break games open, but equally it can put us under immense pressure and gift the ball," Sam Cane told Sky Sport after the game.

"We've got to be really smart with those and make good decisions. It was a foggy, misty Hamilton night; there's a lot of dew and a lot of our skillset stuff wasn't good enough.

"We got what we expected from the Brumbies. They've been almost setting the benchmark in some ways throughout the whole comp."

The Brumbies have lost just one match this season – a 21-7 defeat to the Reds. In three matches against New Zealand opposition, they have won by an average of 12 points – beating the Hurricanes, Highlanders and Chiefs in consecutive weeks.

Against the Chiefs, the turnover numbers were telling. The Chiefs turned the ball over 16 times to the Brumbies' seven, with just five of those 16 won by the Brumbies.

Cane said turning the ball over at that rate was just inviting trouble.

"If we're brutally honest we just made too many handling errors. Some of those were caused from pressure from the Brumbies, some of them just poor skillset from us," Cane said.

"To turn over that much ball and give a quality side like the Brumbies so many attacking opportunities in our 22, they were good enough to capitalise on a lot of those opportunities and they managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over."

The Chiefs have plenty of travel ahead of them over the next three weeks on their run into the playoffs. They travel to meet the Rebels in Melbourne next weekend, before returning home to host the Western Force and finishing their regular season with a trip to Fiji to meet the Fijian Drua.

Still fourth on the table, the Chiefs will emphasise ensuring results in all three matches – and the importance of bonus points. They are one of three teams with a 7-4 record, sitting above the Reds by one bonus point and above the Waratahs on points differential.

"We were always just chasing it. We were always that little bit behind," Cane said. "It sucks, quite frankly, because we haven't quite found the consistency we're really looking for to go all the way in this comp, and we've put ourselves under a wee bit of pressure by not fronting up well enough."