The Chiefs couldn’t have imagined a better bounce-back performance on Saturday evening against the Crusaders in Christchurch, where they were able to get back to winning ways after a disappointing defeat last week against the Hurricanes.
Clayton McMillan’s side was able to turn around a 16-point deficit, scoring 32 unanswered points to overcome a strong Crusaders team at home.
The Chiefs now sit atop the Super Rugby Pacific table after thirteen rounds, only two points ahead of the Brumbies in second place and four ahead of the Crusaders in third place.
McMillan and the Chiefs welcomed back World Rugby Breakthrough Men’s 15s Player of the Year from 2024, Wallace Sititi into the starting lineup in round thirteen, who has slowly been returning from a knee injury that kept him out of the first ten rounds of Super Rugby Pacific.
Despite Sititi’s impressive performance at Apollo Projects Stadium on Saturday, McMillan admits he had his doubts over whether the All Black loose forward was able to play 80 minutes.
“So I probably had question marks around his ability to get through 80 minutes actually, because he’s not long back from injury, but really from sort of taking full part in training, we’ve been very deliberate about managing his minutes over the last couple of weeks,” McMillan told media post-match in Christchurch on Saturday.
“There was a bit of a gamble today around whether we chucked him out there for a start, but here we are, and he certainly had some good impacts on the game, but supported by others like I thought it was honestly a collective performance.”
The departing Chiefs head coach at the end of the year also praised the performance of Sititi, acknowledging his impact for the Chiefs.
“He’s just got that little bit of X Factor and that sort of ability to tend to create something just a little bit special, either for himself, or getting an offload away to somebody else.”
Although they sit top of the table, McMillan is very aware that the job isn’t finished yet and the Crusaders’ game in hand could work in their favour.
“There’s still a couple of games to play, and the Crusaders have got a game in hand that’s going to come down to the wire, and all we can do is control what’s directly in front of us first, but it’s to use the bye week well.
“Even when the Crusaders were losing lots of games last year, no one was ever prepared to write them off, and because they’re such a good side. So we’ve beaten them twice before in a season, and that didn’t go well. So like I said, there’s a lot of rugby still in the trade.”
As the Chiefs are on a bye in round fourteen of the competition, McMillan explains that some players will have heavier workloads than others.
“For some people it will be a full on sort of a week, and then some players with their feet up, and others who probably haven’t played a lot of rugby, their week will look a little bit different, albeit on their terms.
“So we’ll celebrate tonight, because I think it’s a performance worthy of celebration, but we’ve got a week off, and people will just get back into it.”
