Almost exactly four months after the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific season kicked off with the Chiefs comprehensively beating the Crusaders in Christchurch, the two teams will deservedly meet in a grand final that, if the two semifinals are any guide, will be enormously difficult to predict.
Few could have confidently imagined the Crusaders dismantling the Blues to the extent they did in Friday’s 52-15 victory at Orangetheory Stadium and, a week after they struggled to contain the Reds in their quarter-final, the Chiefs left it late to kill off the Brumbies 19-6 at Waikato Stadium last night.
The Chiefs earned the right to host the final after losing only one match in the regular season, a run stitched together with help from their consistently high-performing attacking talents along with a pack led by Sam Cane and Brodie Retallick which has been ruthlessly drilled by coach Clayton McMillan.
However, they have struggled over the past fortnight to break teams open and given the way the Crusaders dominated the Blues defensively and at the breakdown, they will have a mighty challenge against the defending champions on Saturday night.
On the eve of their semifinal, McMillan was asked about his ideal result from the Crusaders v Blues match and he replied he didn’t mind as long as they bashed the living daylights out of each other. Actually, he used stronger language than that.
One day after the Crusaders blew the Blues away in cool but fine conditions in Christchurch it was the Chiefs who were involved in a slugfest against an obdurate but limited Brumbies in the Hamilton rain.
It’s difficult to know what toll that will take on the Chiefs, who were leading 12-6 heading into the final minutes before Retallick scored the game’s only try from close range to seal it.
But form and momentum or whatever you want to call it will count for little next Saturday because, apart from anything else, grand finals attract a different type of intensity and pressure.
In moving their home playoff record to 29-0, the Crusaders confirmed their pedigree in favourable conditions at this time of year. And last year they proved again that they can do it away from home when beating the Blues in the grand final at Eden Park.
Robertson still rates his first championship in 2017 as his most special as the Crusaders had to clear the final hurdle in Johannesburg against the Lions. Another in enemy territory against the Chiefs, who beat the Crusaders home and away this season, Robertson’s last, might go close to that.
And McMillan and the Chiefs are eager to create a little history themselves, 10 years after the franchise won their last Super championship – a victory over the Brumbies in the final in Hamilton under Dave Rennie.
Both teams will be meticulously prepared this week, with McMillan saying last night that the Chiefs coaches had already started looking at a possible Crusaders final before the Brumbies game kicked off.
It’s highly likely the Crusaders did likewise with the Chiefs. And it’s in this preparation that the red and blacks might have a slight advantage because not only were the Blues out-muscled, they were also out-thought.
The way the Crusaders exposed the Blues’ midfield of Bryce Heem and Rieko Ioane on Friday night would have been largely down to assistant coach Scott Hansen’s analysis and strategy.
Hansen, joining Robertson and former Blues coach Leon MacDonald at the All Blacks, is known as one of the sharpest thinkers in the New Zealand game and will present a plan designed to exploit the Chiefs’ defensive idiosyncrasies.
He will have noticed, for instance, the way the first two defenders shot out of the line against the Brumbies, leaving space near the breakdown. There are few better in the modern game to exploit that than Richie Mo’unga, although his opposite at the Chiefs, Damian McKenzie, would go close.
For McMillan, two tight and demanding playoff games could yet be the perfect preparation.
“We've had two tough games, and I'd be lying if I sat here and said I wouldn't have loved it to have been a little bit easier on my heart, or for us to do it a little bit easier,” he said after the game last night.
“But we’re just getting the job done, and at this stage of the season, there's no bonus points, it's irrelevant how big the score line is, it's just about being at the right end of that scoreline at the end of the game.
“There's been times over the last few years where we would've fallen away and lost those sorts of games.
“Winning or losing is often based on a couple of moments, and the fact that over the last few weeks we've been able to win the moments that really matter gives us a lot of confidence.
“So if it goes down to the wire next week, and we get an opportunity to nail it, then I think the last couple of weeks have been good preparation.”
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