All Black's knee injury adds more pain to Chiefs' defeat

The Chiefs, already hurting from their defeat to the Brumbies in Canberra, have suffered a triple injury blow, with lock Tupou Vaa’i, centre Daniel Rona, and outside back Lalakai Foketi returning home early from Australia.

All Black Vaa’i has a knee injury which he will hope does not affect his international ambitions starting in July, while Rona has a hamstring problem and Foketi a hand issue.

The rest of the Chiefs squad has travelled to Perth to play the Force on Saturday and will be joined by replacements Kyle Brown, Daniel Sinkinson and Fiti Sa.

Likely dominating the thoughts of head coach Jono Gibbes on the team’s journey from Canberra to Western Australia was how his side lost a match they were firmly in control of.

Up 24-7 with just over a quarter of the game to play, the Chiefs conceded three tries in 10 minutes as the Brumbies overtook them to lead 26-24.

And if Damian McKenzie’s penalty miss from a handy distance and angle with three minutes remaining was a disappointment, that was nothing compared with the lead up to the Brumbies’ final try of the night.

The Chiefs, attacking the Brumbies’ line in the final minute, appeared almost certain to score but loose forward Simon Parker, who made his All Blacks debut last year, spilled the ball at the back of a ruck, with wing Corey Toole then intercepting Parker’s pass and running in for a converted try from 95m.

It was a stunning intervention from both men – a perfect way for veteran prop James Slipper to celebrate his record-breaking 203rd Super Rugby match – and it left the Chiefs, who up to that point had earned a losing bonus point, with nothing.

Some defeats hurt worse than others and this will take some time for the Chiefs to get over.

"I definitely feel like we could have won the game tonight ... so we've got to be better there," Chiefs captain Luke Jacobson said afterwards.

"I'm pretty frustrated. We just weren't able to build enough continuity in our attack."

One competition point would have put the Chiefs into fifth place but instead they were overtaken by the Crusaders, who finally found balance to their attacking game to put Moana Pasifika to the sword 50-21.

The Chiefs, who opened their season with workmanlike victories over the Blues and Highlanders, also blew a big lead in their defeat to the Crusaders at home in round three.

After making the last three grand finals only to lose them all, there will now be more questions about the Chiefs’ ability to make consistently good decisions under pressure.

The Crusaders’ big win at North Harbour Stadium was the first time they have strung back-to-back victories together this season and it came despite an injury crisis which saw 22-year-old Cooper Grant starting at first-five on his debut.

Grant did well, as did fellow debutant Kurtis MacDonald, an outside back who scored a well-taken try off the bench.

The Crusaders have thus far been guilty of poor handling, making poor decisions with their offloading, and relying too much on fullback Will Jordan, who captained the side in the absence of the injured David Havili.

But they were far more accurate last night and had threats across the field, including from midfielder Leicester Fainga’anuku, who made a big impact as a replacement, and prop Fletcher Newell, who showed a surprising turn of pace in the lead up to hooker George Bell’s first try.

The Blues are another side who appear to be building an understanding of how their pieces best fit together, even when some of the more significant are unavailable.

Their 35-20 victory over the Waratahs in Sydney after they faced an 8-20 deficit, was a masterclass in composure and finishing ability.

The Waratahs will be ruing their own inefficiencies today; they spurned three clear-cut chances to score in the first half.

There is a sense, too, that with Beauden Barrett pulling the strings nicely and running with pace on attack that the All Blacks No.10 is coming into some encouraging form.

Outside back Payton Spencer, the son of former Blues and All Blacks' No.10 Carlos, made his debut for the Blues.

There was a sense that the Highlanders were holding on to their season by the slenderest of threads due to their horrendous injury toll which has already ruled out lock Fabian Holland and halfback Dylan Pledger for the campaign.

We’ll now see how resilient this squad is after the home side opened the scoring with a converted try against the Hurricanes in Dunedin only to concede the next 50 points without reply.

It was a harsh lesson in accuracy and, worryingly for head coach Jamie Joseph, the Hurricanes made them pay dearly for several defensive lapses.

The Crusaders (currently fifth), Blues (second) and Hurricanes (first) all appear to be trending in the right direction as far as the Kiwi teams are concerned but the Brumbies (third) and Reds (fourth) remain stubbornly in contention for the playoffs.