It may have taken the Chiefs 30 hours to travel from New Zealand to Cape Town, but that doesn’t mean that they will stop playing attacking rugby in Saturday’s Super Rugby quarter-final against the Stormers at Newlands.
A weary looking coach Dave Rennie and flyhalf Aaron Cruden fronted up to the Cape media on Tuesday after their long journey from Auckland. The two-time champions only landed in the Mother City at 10pm on Monday night, having already had to go from Dunedin – where they lost to the Highlanders and relinquished top spot on the log – to Hamilton over the weekend.
But their wily coach Dave Rennie says the travel factor is not such a big deal any longer. “Obviously we are over here all the time. We don’t tend to talk about it either, it’s just part of it and the recovery is important. Getting into the sleep and the right time-zones – I think we’ve done a pretty good job already of this trip,” he said.
“We had a light day today, with gym this morning and a light run this afternoon after our review. We will start to ramp it up tomorrow.”
The bigger talking point will be how they will approach this game considering the fact that there is a 50 percent chance of rain forecast for Cape Town on Saturday. The Chiefs play a wonderful brand of rugby where they give their backline the licence to attack with ball-in-hand, but they vary their play cleverly with kicks over the top from Cruden, fullback Damian McKenzie and left wing James Lowe.
Rennie was clear on what his team would do if it rains, but he wasn’t quite sure about the Stormers, who have also made some progress with their attack this season, which has been aided by a powerful pack. “We haven’t played in too much rain this year – we did against the Crusaders a couple of weeks ago, and I thought we did a pretty good job dealing with that,” he said.
“So, I think both sides would want a dry ball anyway – there’s going to be a massive crowd and a hell of an occasion. But it is what it is, and if it rains, we’ll still play.
“I’ve done a lot of work on them over the last couple of days… Obviously the plan was to be in New Zealand playing someone else. They’re an impressive unit and we’ve played them a lot. They’ve got a big pack, good athletes, they carry hard, and obviously they play a good brand of footy too.
“They’ve always been a team who wants to play. They still kick the ball a fair bit, they want to play the game at the right end of the field. Robbie (Fleck) is a pretty innovative man… I think they would want to play too. They’ve got a pretty impressive defensive lineout, big scrum. They’re areas we’re aware of. I guess the question is whether they will still play in the rain, and I’m not sure.”
While the Stormers forwards have been outstanding in the last three weeks, especially in the scrums, Rennie said “No!” when asked if the Cape side will have an edge in that facet of play.
But he knows that Eben Etzebeth and Pieter-Steph du Toit will loom large for the Chiefs this weekend. Asked if they have any plans to disrupt the Stormers lineout, Rennie quipped: “Yeah, some pretty smart ones, we think!
“But defensively they are very strong. Etzebeth is a hell of an athlete, and we are aware of how they can choke teams because you can’t get a steady source of lineout ball. We’ve got a plan around that, but it’s not easy.”
Meanwhile, the Stormers announced on Tuesday that utility back Scott van Breda have not been cleared to play in Saturday’s match.
Coach Robbie Fleck said on Monday that he was just awaiting Van Breda’s clearance, as he was not part of the original squad and hasn’t played the required four league matches to be eligible for the Super Rugby playoffs.
But Sanzaar turned down the request, so it may result in the Stormers going in with five forwards and three backs instead of an extra forward, as Robert du Preez is likely to cover flyhalf and Johnny Kotze the outside backs.
Fleck will announce his match-23 on Thursday.
@ashfakmohamed - Independent Media