Watch: McKenzie the standout again as he scorers the winner in the last minute
Chiefs fullback Damian McKenzie has won the match against the Blues with a try late, after an impressive break from Number Eight Luke Jacobson.
Jacobson made a brilliant burst through the Blues defensive line, before getting an offload off.
McKenzie then got the ball, and backed himself to get to the line as he bounced off Blues defenders. Considering his try-saving tackle in the first-half, it wouldn’t be unfair to call him the player of the match.
But this match was filled with plenty of drama, from start to finish.
The second-half started with a Damian McKenzie penalty, which was the Chiefs first points of the night.
Still trailing by four points though, they came close to scoring earlier in the half through centre Anton Lienert-Brown, who came agonising close to scoring. But the try was instead ruled out by the TMO, with 25-year-old gathering the ball, dropping it, gathering it again before finally dropping it once more.
But the Chiefs weren’t done.
Hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho gave the Chiefs the lead for the first time in the match with just over 20-minutes to play. Damian McKenzie couldn’t quite slot the conversion though, pushing the kick left.
With the Blues trailing, but only just, the match was there for the taking as they entered the last quarter of action.
From the kick-off that followed, Sam Cane was penalised, but Otere Black missed what would’ve been a go-ahead shot at goal.
But soon after, the Blues began to look really good on attack once again. Caleb Clarke made a roughly 20-metre break down the left-wing before the ball was sent wide right – finding Robinson.
Down by one, the Blues replacement got the ball just short of 40-metres out from the line. Stepping off his right foot, he went straight through the Chiefs defensive line, eventually finding himself in open space.
Chiefs scrumhalf Brad Weber put up a solid chase, but couldn’t quite reel down Robinson.
For a player who’s listed on the Blues website at 198cm tall, and weighs 110kg, this was an incredible effort. He showed great versatility in this passage of play, but generally brought great impact to the Blues coming off the bench.
The rest of the match was tense to say the least
The Blues had a try ruled out by the TMO, but the Chiefs never quite gave up.
Then at the death, Number Eight Luke Jacobson laid the platform for the winning try, which was scored by McKenzie.
It’s a crucial win for both sides in the context of this season.
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Interesting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
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