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Slow starts for the Chiefs or just fast finishes?
By Online Editors
Another week, another win sparked by a second-half comeback for the Chiefs.
It's becoming something of a habit for the club, whose 51-14 win over the Waratahs in Wollongong on Friday night was the third time they've won a game in which they trailed in at halftime.
Even in their decimation of the Sunwolves in round three, the Chiefs found themselves behind on the scoreboard early. Now with a 4-1 record through six rounds, which included a bye, their sole loss to the Brumbies — a 26-14 loss in Hamilton — might have shown the blueprint for how to beat them: score early and often, and hope your defence holds up late.
So far this season, the Chiefs have scored 121 of their 170 points in the second halves of games. In their loss against the Brumbies they were down 19-0 at halftime.
"It doesn't matter who you play and at what level, usually in the first 20 or 30 minutes they're going to be pretty tight contests and you just have to stay focused for that whole period," Chiefs coach Warren Gatland said.
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"At this level you know you're going to be in an arm wrestle probably in the first half. It's just about addressing a few things at halftime, getting it right, taking a bit of a break and building on that confidence.
"We've been very strong in the second half so we feel like we're in a pretty good shape from a conditioning point of view."
Against the Waratahs, the Chiefs came out of the gates firing and ran out to a 13-0 lead. However, a couple of soft penalties opened the door for the hosts to hit back, and come halftime the Chiefs trailed 14-13.
The second half as a different story, as the Chiefs ran in 38 unanswered points to come away with a dominant win. Despite having to make more tackles and having just 40 per cent of the possession, the Chiefs outscored the Waratahs seven tries to two to claim their first win away to the New South Wales club since 2007.
"Even for the first half I wasn't that unhappy with it," Gatland said of the match. "I thought we started well and that was a whole focus."
The Chiefs will now head back to Hamilton and turn their attention to their third local derby of the season against the Hurricanes on Friday.
This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and is republished with permission.
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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