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Sam Cane to join exclusive Chiefs club

Sam Cane leads out the Chiefs.

All Blacks and Chiefs openside Sam Cane is set to join an exclusive club this Friday night against the Highlanders, becoming just the fifth player in Chiefs history to play 100 times for the Waikato-based franchise.

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“For whatever reason, the Chiefs have only got four centurions compared to some of the other teams going round,” Cane said. “And those four players are pretty special here at this Chiefs club, so to be parked up alongside them will be a pretty special achievement.”

Cane will join centurians Liam Messam (166), Hika Elliot (117), Tanerau Latimer (109) and Stephen Donald (104) in the Chiefs 100 club.

“I was just a boy when I came in, wide-eyed and learning and trying to soak it all up,” Cane said. “I was pretty fortunate to have Tanerau here, learning off and looking up to, and then competing for the same jersey.”

He debuted in 2011 against the Lions at Ellis Park in Johannesburg after being called up from the wide training squad to attend the tour of South Africa.

“I remember it pretty clearly,” he said.

“I probably only got between five and 10 minutes, and being a young 19-year-old I went out there and ran round and tried to attend every ruck, and being at altitude, five minutes later I had nothing left in my legs. So I learnt from that one.”

Cane was apart of the back-to-back title winning Chiefs squads in 2012-13 and has since gone on to play 53 times for the All Blacks, recently becoming the preferred starting openside following the retirement of legend Richie McCaw.

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“When I first started out my strengths were my continuity, my ball skills, my support play,” he said. “And as I’ve got older it’s changed to more trying to have a physical presence. I suppose that just comes with age and also with what they want from loose forwards – at this level, but also international level – so I’ve had to look at ways to do that, but I’ve enjoyed the ride.”

“I’m only 26, so I don’t feel that old,” he said. “But if you look at past Chiefs teams – 2011, 2012, there’s only a couple of us left.

“With professional rugby these days, not everyone ends up, for whatever reason, getting to play for the team that they grew up supporting. So I consider myself pretty fortunate.”

 

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F
Flankly 3 hours ago
There remains a culture of excuses in Australian rugby

One team has exceeded expectations in this series and the other has not. Hats off to a Wallabies team in rebuild mode for a smile-inducing effort in the second test (especially the first half).


Completely agree that a top ranked team finds ways to defend a big half-time lead, and they did not quite pull it off. The fact that Piardi did not run the Head Contact Process in the 79th minute Tizzano/Morgan incident is worth discussion. However, Schmidt will be pointing out to the team that avoiding a defensive breakdown on your own 5m line at that point in the game is the thing in their control. Equally, clarification 3-2022 says you cannot jump or dive as a means of avoiding a tackle, as Sheehan admits to have done, but the question for Australia is why and how they were facing a tap-and-go 5m from their line (again).


Where I disagree with this article is the suggestion that Australia are caught in an excuse-making trap of poor performance. For me they are on a steep curve of improvement, and from what we have seen of Schmidt, there is little reason to assume that this will end now. Granted Australia lacks player depth, and that’s a real problem against big teams and in major campaigns. But the Lions are a pretty good team, probably ranking in the top five in the world, and the rebuilding Wallabies were seconds (and a couple of 50/50 ref calls) away from beating them at the MCG.


In the end, the Wallabies are building to a home RWC, and were expected to lose the Lions series on the way to that goal. Success looks like being seriously competitive in the series loss, with good learnings about what needs to be fixed. A series win would have been a fantastic bonus, and humiliation for the UK/Ireland team.


I expect the Wallabies to be very credible in the 2025 RC, to be much better in 2026, and to be a very challenging opponent for any team in the 2027 RWC.

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