Sport: Chiefs not cheats but rule contentious

Dave Rennie

As i once wrote in a column in late 2014 defending Sonny Bill Williams joining the All Blacks straight from the NRL, "necessity is the mother of creative sportsmanship".

A storm in a tea cup, or should we say scrummage, has blown up in Super Rugby since the Chiefs' squeak-by 28-27 win over the Hurricanes at Westpac Stadium last week and has set two of the New Zealand game's most knowledgeable minds against each other regarding manipulation of the substitution rule.

Truth be told, if was not for the one-point nature of the result, this prop controversy would probably only be a minor discussion point at your next local referee association's meeting, rather than a national bunfight between Chiefs coach Dave Rennie and respected former All Black prop Craig Dowd.

For the record, during my brief tenure with Rugby News magazine in the late 2000s, I had the chance to interview both Rennie and Dowd and found them each to be the straightest of shooters.

The Rennie chat was a frank discussion about the glowing future of a young Under 20s player named Aaron Cruden, whose 75th minute head knock at Westpac Stadium would set off this whole chain of events, while the Dowd discussion was one of my favourite interviews as he and fellow All Black Scott McLeod took turns answering questions while they worked out on exercise bikes at the IRANZ Academy at Massey University.

After listening to both men make their case on talkback radio and studying the accusing footage provided by the NZ Herald, I don't believe the Chiefs faked the back injury to tighthead prop Siate Tokolahi, while the safety-first belief that third replacement prop Siegfried Fisi'ihoi was not a specialist honestly dictated their request for golden oldies scrums.

But I also don't think they minded that thanks to these legal circumstances, the Hurricanes lost their one potent advantage in game's dying moments.

So, the Chiefs didn't cheat, but they certainly played an already contentious and overly complicated rule to the letter.

First, let's look at Tokolahi constantly getting up but going back down to a knee whenever the trainers talked to him.

Rennie said the young man was just trying to gut through the pain and stay on the field.

"Ultimately, the medics are saying they're not good enough to go on. We've said it was legitimate, we ended up losing two tighthead props so we had to go to 14 [men].

"I'm just angry - the insinuating, that we dragged him off intentionally, it just irritates me."

While trainers are employed directly by their franchise, they are also licensed medical practitioners, so it would be a serious dent to their reputations - perhaps future employable status - to diagnose a fit player being hurt because the coach wants to make a replacement.

It's not worth risking a career over.

I think it's safe to say Tokolahi was told to take the knee purely as a recovery position and when he couldn't convince the medics he should continue, then he accepted the helping hand off the field. Any "acting" had come beforehand by trying to look healthy.

But this is where Dowd's knowledge of Fisi'ihoi's abilities also carry weight.

"I'm just cracking up. What an absolute sort of farce," he said on this turn at the microphone.

"Fisi'ihoi, how many games did he play at tighthead for Bay of Plenty last year?

"I had him down as a tighthead for the IRANZ when he went down to the course. I coached him as a tighthead.

"[Rennie] did what he could do to get away with it. Should he have been able to? No, but he knew the rules."

Was the 28-year-old Fisi'ihoi so incapable of pushing competitively on the other side of the scrum that he risked serious neck injury because everyone would cave on top of him?

Rennie, who sees him every week, says yes. Dowd, who comes from the old school where you sometimes have to make do with lesser men in key roles, says no.

"He's scrummed occasionally at tighthead where we've tried to upskill him, and he's gotten absolutely murdered, so it's a safety issue," said Rennie.

"Some of those positions you can fudge, but you can't do it with a front-rower."

For Dowd, it is the ages of 15 to 17 that are the danger time for props when it comes to being taught the correct scrummaging and conditioning techniques to handle the strain of all that muscle.

If they can't handle it by the time they're professionals in Super Rugby, "they're kidding themselves", he insisted.

"I think the Hurricanes can feel somewhat aggrieved."

In any other position, what the Chiefs requested simply wouldn't fly.

If your star fullback has to come off and the ball is chipped over his replacement and the reserve doesn't have enough pace to turn and save the ball in-goal before the chasers arrived, you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept it.

Dowd laments we've turned too much into a "nanny state", because while Fisi'ihoi would have been pushed backwards, he would not have been hurt - collapsed scrums look painful, but injuries are minimal, he opined.

I would be inclined to agree, were it not for the Herald's recent eye-opening investigation on dementia cases for retired players due to constant concussions and lack of medical knowledge from those times. With respect to Dowd, "harden up" doesn't cut it anymore.

However, one suggestion he did make this week could offer a solution to this entire dispute and protect the integrity a furious Rennie feels has been impinged.

Rather than relying on a coach's word, week to week, make it clear from the first announcement of the franchise squads just which players are specialists and who are the allrounders.

"Back in November when he selects the squad, he can say, "This player is a tighthead and a loosehead, or he's just a tighthead or just a loosehead, or whatever, and then there's no grey area."

Rennie has nailed his colours to the mast with regards to Fisi'ihoi for the rest of the season.

Because if the Chiefs ever find themselves with a clear scrum advantage but wind up short of a tighthead prop in another game, then the attack on their integrity was justified if old Siate jogs on ready to go full contact.