It was a tough night for hometown fans with the Chiefs toppled at home in Round 11, as they were their own worst enemies on the night with poor discipline, ball security and a high number of handling errors that saw Dave Rennie’s men lose out on several scoring opportunities. The Highlanders took all their chances, scoring three tries on the night, including brace for the returning All Black winger Waisake Naholo, to win 13-26.
Victorious coach Jamie Joseph told Last Word On Sports “We had a plan and we executed it. I’m really proud of the performance, there was a lot of desire and determination out there but also some uncharacteristic mistakes and we are fortunate to come away with it in the end.” He spoke of fact it is such a long competition and was not happy with some lineout turnovers, but overall the Highlanders coach feels they will be confident from this victory heading into the crucial match-up against the Crusaders next week.
“We love playing at home, and we’ll look forward to that. The boys will have felt it tonight, the Chiefs are a tough side so I’m really proud of their performance” as he should be.
Discipline was an issue for the Highlanders side early on, conceding three penalties inside the opening ten minutes and ensuring that they were down the wrong end of the field in the opening stages. Aaron Cruden slotted the first points of the night for his side, but the Highlanders answered back to tie up the scores thanks to Lima Sopoaga. Limited opportunities were the them for the visitors even as their forward pack was winning the battle of the breakdown early on.
Turning possession over twice, but the Chiefs were commanding in their territorial advantage, much of which was sadly ‘going to nothing’ because of numerous handling errors. Sopoaga put the Highlanders into the lead when the Chiefs were penalised for not rolling away, the second time points went the way of the Southern men when they entered the Chiefs red zone. 3-6 after 20 minutes.
Damian McKenzie shared kicking duties with Aaron Cruden, taking the longer-distance attempts but he just couldn’t even the scores with his first kick. It was at this time that Waisake Naholo was beginning to make his presence felt on the field, running 25-metres downfield to put Chiefs back on the back foot. The flying fijian was a handful for James Lowe and inside the Chiefs 22 line, a slight fumble of the ball confused the defensive line resulting in Daniel Lienert-Brown (pictured) scoring his first try in Super Rugby. The Tasman prop was delighted to score, and Marty Banks converted his try.
It was at this point that Elliot Dixon was turned inside out by Charlie Ngatai, who committed to a tackle of Elliot when both players vied for possession. Ngatai appeared to accidentally ran into Dixon, resulting in an horrific somersault fall to the ground. The TMO looked at multiple views of the incident; that brought back memories of Willie le Roux and other recent incidents. Chris Pollock came onto the field to consult with match referee Angus Gardner and the outcome for Ngatai was a trip to the sin bin for ten minutes.
The risk to players today means referees are bound to single out instances; even accidental but a good sight was the two players exchanging handshakes when Ngatai left the field. The Highlanders held a 13-3 lead at halftime, thanks to too many handling errors by the Chiefs and they would have to work harder now, being a man down to begin the second half.
The Highlanders pushed further ahead soon after the break when Waisake Naholo powered his way over the line in the corner, pushing the Southern men out to a 18-3 lead. The try was set up thanks to a speedy break from fellow winger Patrick Osborne who had a good battle with Tony Pulu, but the additional numbers in possession led to this try.
Returning to play, Ngatai immediately kicked the Chiefs into gear, screaming off downfield after stepping right past the Highlanders defensive line. The Chiefs had numbers, and a series of well executed passes saw Cruden score another try in his successful Super Rugby career (over 700 competition points now) to get the Chiefs back into slight contention but still behind by ten points.
After many attacking moves broke down due to poor handling, Naholo all but dashed any hopes of a Chiefs comeback when he scored for the second time in the half. Taking advantage of additional numbers out wide, the right wing made a great return to action after a leg injury halted his season, and the Highlanders out to a 23-8 lead. Naholo’s solid outing would have been just the way the Fijian-born winger would have dreamed his return to Super Rugby from injury to be. His remark post-match “the leg’s good, lungs are feeling it though” showed he is still to reach full speed but the All Black coaches in the crowd would have noted his enthusiasm.
In the last minutes, replacement Maama Vaipulu was penalised for reaching over the ruck, a cynical challenge for the ball and after a series of warnings to the Chiefs by referee Gardner, the team’s second yellow card of the night was handed down. After that, they found it hard to respond and it was a case of “too little to late” for the Chiefs; but a nice moment for debutante and former NZ Sevens representative Sam Vaka, scoring in the corner to finish a long rally of possession in Highlanders territory.
In the end, the Highlanders ran away with an easy 26-13 win to topple the Chiefs chances of retaining a points lead at the top of the New Zealand conference. “It’s a tough competition” Rennie told waiting media. “I thought by halftime we had them under pressure. Thought our scrum was excellent and we stole a couple of lineouts but handling errors cost us. Accuracy let us down and in these matches you have to win those arm wrestles. We just weren’t good enough.”
Chiefs 13
(Try: Sam Vaka, Aaron Cruden. Penalty: Cruden 1)
Highlanders 26
(Try: Daniel Lienert-Brown, Waisake Naholo 2. Penalties: Lima Sopoaga 3. Conversion: Marty Banks 1)
“Main photo credit”
