[2017 Super Rugby] Round 1: Highlanders vs. Chiefs (24/02/2017)

[TRF_heineken]

Venue: Forsyth Barr Stadium
Time: 08:35 (CAT, GMT+2)​

Teams

Highlanders: 15 Ben Smith (captain), 14 Waisake Naholo, 13 Malakai Fekitoa, 12 Rob Thompson, 11 Tevita Li, 10 Lima Sopoaga, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Liam Squire, 7 James Lentjes, 6 Gareth Evans, 5 Tom Franklin, 4 Alex Ainley, 3 Siate Tokolahi, 2 Liam Coltman, 1 Daniel Lienert-Brown

Substitutes: 16 Adrian Smith, 17 Craig Millar, 18 Guy Millar, 19 Jackson Hemopo, 20 Elliot Dixon, 21 Kayne Hammington, 22 Fletcher Smith, 23 Matt Faddes

Chiefs: 15 Damian McKenzie, 14 Toni Pulu, 13 Anton Lienert-Brown, 12 Johnny Faauli, 11 James Lowe, 10 Aaron Cruden (captain), 9 Tawera Kerr-Barlow, 8 Liam Messam, 7 Mitchell Karpik, 6 Taleni Seu, 5 Brodie Retallick, 4 Dominic Bird, 3 Nepo Laulala, 2 Hika Elliot, 1 Kane Hames

Substitutes: 16 Samisoni Taukei'aho, 17 Siegfried Fisi'ihoi, 18 Atu Moli, 19 Mitchell Brown, 20 Lachlan Boshier, 21 Jonathan Taumateine, 22 Tim Nanai-Williams, 23 Shaun Stevenson

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

[2017 Super Rugby] Round 1: Highlanders vs. Chiefs (25/02/2017)

Not a fancy thread, but a room for discussion at least.

Match of the round.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

a win is all im hoping for, doesn't need to break any records of even have a bonus point. We have a hard start to the year so every point we can get is important

dont think we have any excuses, full strength more or less, dont know how the Chiefs came out of pre season?

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Highlanders look to be close to full strength:

Highlanders: Ben Smith (c), Waisake Naholo, Malakai Fekitoa, Rob Thompson, Tevita Li, Lima Sopoaga, Aaron Smith, Liam Squire, James Lentjes, Gareth Evans, Tom Franklin, Alex Ainley, Siate Tokolahi, Liam Coltman, Daniel Lienert-Brown.

Reserves: Adrian Smith, Craig Millar, Guy Millar, Jackson Hemopo, Elliot Dixon, Kayne Hammington, Fletcher Smith, Matt Faddes.

The Chiefs will obviously be missing Weber and Graham, and Ngatai is not yet back from concussion. Cane is touch and go and Harris won't be back until April. So there are a few injuries here and there, but the Chiefs should still be able to stitch together a decent team. Biggest question is who will partner ALB in the midfield - probably TNW or Johnny Fa'auli. I'm hoping for the latter, I don't think TNW has the size for midfield.

EDIT:

Chiefs team named.

Chiefs: Damian McKenzie, Toni Pulu, Anton Lienert-Brown, Johnny Faauli, James Lowe, Aaron Cruden, Tawera Kerr-Barlow; Liam Messam, Mitchell Karpik, Taleni Seu, Brodie Retallick, Dominic Bird, Nepo Laulala, Hika Elliot, Kane Hames.

Reserves: Samisoni Taukei'aho, Siegfried Fisi'ihoi, Atu Moli, Mitchell Brown, Lachlan Boshier, Jonathan Taumateine, Tim Nanai-Williams, Shaun Stevenson.

 

[nickdnz]

Really tough match to call for my mind. I rate man for man the Chiefs having the better forward pack, and the Highlanders the better backline.

 

[The Jones Boy]

The Highlanders backline is pretty scary, if they get ball they will be a real handful.

 

[Larksea]

yeah match of the round easy, unusual to only have one NZ derby game in the first round.

agree that on paper at least he landers have it in the backs and the chiefs in the forwards but there is not a lot in it.

I think the highlanders are favorites because of home ground advantage.

midfield is an issue for the chiefs, its an area they have been strong in under Renee but the loss of SBW & Seta plus the continued unavailability of Ngatai. All of a sudden ALB is our senior midfielder. TNW always lacked the size for midfield and he did have a habit of dropping off the odd tackle but he made up for it with his footwork and speed on attack. But From what I saw at the 10's he was lacking that spark he used to have. I think most would have expected TNW to have a field day at the 10's but he really struggled.

I haven't seen much of Johnny Faauli, sounds like he was very good in ITM cup. He has a massive opportunity with this situation. Hopefully he's another Renee success story.

The strength for the chiefs is the potential of that back 5 in the forwards. Messam, karpik, Seu, Bird, Retalick. Its not stacked with AB's but obviously Retalick is arguably the best lock to ever play the game, Seu was very impressive last year, Karpik has a lot of hype behind him and he must be in good shape as hes keeping the impressive Boshier on the bench. Bird was massive last season and IMO should have got an All Black recall. The first game of the year is interesting because you dont really know where the players are at in terms of form & fitness. But this year we had the 10's and the most interesting thing from that was the state of Messam, he looked in Career best shape over those two days.

Interesting that Michael Leitch isn't there I'm guessing he is late to come back from Japan?

Chiefs are going to rely a lot on Cruden & McKenzie, going to be interesting to see if McKenzie can continue his hot form from last year, he looked to be carrying a Knee ****le at the end of last year hopefully that's cleared up.

I'm haven't been sold on Pulu yet. Chiefs always looked better with McNicol there.

Also great to see Nepo Laulala back which will actually be his chiefs debut. That is a classy chiefs front row. The interesting thing for me is the bench front rowers look like that can make a significant impact later on. These guys were very impressive at the 10's.

For the highlanders its interesting that Evans has been preferred ahead of Dixon. That looks like it could be a form thing. IMO Dixon was flat in 2016.
I think Li could be big for the highlanders this year. Ben smith will be Ben Smith.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Merged the threads. No need to have 2 match threads for the same game...

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Merged the threads. No need to have 2 match threads for the same game...

Thanks @Heineken - somehow I couldn't see it the other day!

 

[Millsy]

James Lowe is a thief in the night!

 

[galumay]

Good win ground out by the Chiefs, they hung tight when they had no ball or territory in the first half, grabbed their chances and then closed out the second half. 'Landers seemed very inaccurate, first game fumbles maybe. If they had taken their chances they probably would have won but the Chiefs made the most of the few opportunities they had.

Wasnt really the quality of game I expected, I had thought it might be the game of the round but maybe not. Anyway I am happy the Chiefs got up, the bonus point is handy in these all NZ games too.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

A further sign of how good a coach Jamie Joseph is perhaps?

 

[Makos]

What a terrible game for the Highlanders. Gifting points and kicking the pill away and overall just making poor decisions. Fekitoa was the worst player on the park by some distance and he's not All Black standard. Reiko Ioane can take his spot no problem. Aaron Smiths form is of some big concern as well. Won't be surprised to see TJ take his spot over the coming season.

In saying that, the Chiefs are cheats, no idea how they did not get a few yellow cards? This is actually a problem in New Zealand, we allow far too much leniency. Then when it comes to play the Northern Hemisphere teams we're always complaining about getting penalized. This is why I don't want Dave Renne anywhere near the All Blacks, his cynical style will get us nowhere in a RWC, only a 18-9 loss to England/Ireland. We will be penalized off the park.

The Chiefs barely had the pill and managed to score 3 tries? School boy errors from the Landers. The discipline of Jamie Josef looks badly missed already.

A couple of positives;

Te Vita Li is an outstanding player and another prospect for the outside backs for the AB's.
James Lowe is an outstanding finisher and has definitely beefed up, hopefully this year he gets a run in the AB's
And Kerr Barlow was excellent.

Hard to make a judgement on the first game, but I think both these sides will be struggling to make the play-offs this season, both teams lacking a cutting edge and with a few injuries the Highlanders pack is pretty light and I'd like to see the Chiefs disciplined further in their upcoming fixtures.

 

[Makos]

By the way, I'm desperately trying to get information on what's happened to Christie? I heard all sorts of tests have been ran and they can't determine what the matter with him is? I really hope this isn't the onset of something bad...

 

[Larksea]

yip, Christie has some mystery ailment and his still undergoing tests. Hopefully not serious, such a good player and I've hardly seen him play for the last couple of years.

Solid game bit rusty at times being the first game and all. The winning factor was really the chiefs ability to scramble on defense and defend close to the line. Which has been a strength of theirs for a while.

Cruden didn't really make much of an impact on attack, maybe a symptom of the quality of ball he got or the highlanders closing him down. It seemed like a lot of the time the chiefs were trying to attack for a couple of phases then giving up and using quite short range kicks - which I guess was to avoid the highlanders back 3 returning but in the end the conceded a heck of a lot of possession and field position this way and couldn't effectively turn that around.

Was very much a team effort, no real standouts but McKenzie impressed me with his work under the high ball and his tackling was superb. Was often right on hand to stop the highlanders attack when they broke the first line - which they did often. Lowe was also very impressive on both attack and defense. His 2 intercepts were clearly the difference between the two sides in the end.

 

[bazwaz]

Pretty awesome start to the season for the Chiefs...firstly taking out the Brisbane 10s...

Then beating the Landers down there at Tony Brown's place - no mean feat...especially given injuries to Webb , Sam Cane, Ngatai, Graham etc and given our record is not so good against the Landers...
But as the proverb goes..Mate atu he tetekura ara mai he tetekura - when one Chief falls another rises...

So a positive start and first impressions, the Chiefs look the goods...showed on Fiday they had a great scrum, they scrambled well in defence and capitalised well on Landers mistakes...showing as in years gone by that possession and field position aren't everything when you are a great counter attacking team and have a solid D..

Also impressed by how the new centre configuration pairing of Leinart Brown and John Faauli is working so well...and how good is it to have Nanai Williams to add that extra attacking prowess off the bench as an impact player...?

All and all a great team effort orchestrated by the worlds best standoff in Aaron Cruden...what a great loss to NZ rugby he will be not to mention that of Dave Rennie...can't help but wonder how different things would be if Hansen had left like he said he was going to...

But going forward, next up for the Chiefs is the Blues inthe Battle of the Bombays... and it looks like we have found our next AB centre in Reiko Iaone...chances are he will be facing his potential future AB centre counterpart Anton Leinart Brown- what a matchup that will be..

A home game for the Chiefs against the Blues followed by another home game against the Canes...does'nt get much better than this...Go the Mighty Chiefs..