How the Chiefs could end Crusaders' era of dominance

Publish Date
Thursday, 9 June 2022, 12:50PM

By Christopher Reive

Clayton McMillan sees the value in short turnarounds at the pointy end of a campaign.

With only two weeks at most left in the Super Rugby Pacific season, the Chiefs coach has no complaints over having less rest than the Crusaders going into their semifinal clash in Christchurch on Friday night.

The hosts will have an extra day's rest under their belts ahead of the match, having played their quarterfinal last Friday while the Chiefs played on Saturday. However, speaking ahead of the match, McMillan outlined the positives of that.

"There's a real value in having short turnarounds, especially heading into the finals," he explained. "It means you just get back into work early, get straight into business; there's not a lot of time to twiddle your thumbs and think about what might be.

"It's straight into preparations and when we've had short turnarounds, this group generally trends to do OK with that."

McMillan has named a relatively unchanged side from the group that dispatched the Waratahs in Hamilton last weekend, with Josh Ioane getting the start at fullback in an otherwise unchanged run-on side. They will get a boost from the bench with the return of co-captain Sam Cane from a knee injury, while George Dyer replaces Atu Moli in the front row reinforcements.

It will be the second time this season that the Chiefs and Crusaders have met in Christchurch. Back in round three, the Chiefs announced themselves as a title contender with a 24-21 win.

While that was three months ago and the Crusaders have won all 26 of their home finals games, McMillan said there were elements of that game that gave his side confidence they could take into this one.

"It shows that they're beatable down there," he said. "But that was a long time ago, or it feels like a long time ago. Both teams will have improved their games between then and now, and once you get to finals footy it's what you produce on the day. That's what our focus is on – the 80 minutes in front of us – and hopefully we've got a good plan to make a good fist of it.

"We demonstrated down there that we have the ability, but you just have to turn up and perform. There's no magic formula. We know we have the squad that can go down there and win, but we need to go down there and perform for 80 minutes.

"We're really looking forward to the challenge and if we're good enough, we're good enough."

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission

 

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you