....had to look beyond their extended Super Rugby squad to cover for injuries during the pre-season.
Former Crusaders back Tom Marshall joined the Chiefs in the off season but has had to have surgery on his thumb and will miss the start of the 2014 season.
Double Super Rugby winning coach Dave Rennie says that they will look to fill the gap with some of their ITM Cup players.
"We've got (Maori All Black) Ihaia West who's been running with us a couple of weeks before Christmas and then now Marty McKenzie will come in as cover next week," Rennie told NewstalkZB
Who is Marty McKenzie you ask? see
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/rugby/9593620/
Rennie said that they are hoping to have more information in the next couple of weeks on the immediate future of Robbie Fruean who is recovering from heart surgery.
Chiefs flanker Tanerau Latimer had recently also lost the feeling in a couple of his fingers.
He's had two elbow operations to fix the problem and says regaining a millimetre of feeling a day is the worst rate of recovery.
Latimer says it's frustrating to have such a setback in pre-season.
Latimer says he'll be fine for the start of the Super Rugby season.
Also in the forward pack there is still doubt that hooker Hika Elliot will play this season after neck surgery last November, and veteran rake Mahonri Schwalger is still recovering from a knee operation, although he is getting close to returning to training and took part in some scrummaging work this week.
"There [have] been some positive noises coming from the specialist in regard to a full recovery [for Elliot] and it's just the time frame now," Rennie said.
"Whether he will be right to take any part in our season is questionable so we're catching up with him later this week and some decisions will be made around that in the next couple of weeks."
Promising young Bay of Plenty hooker Nathan Harris has had pre-season training with the squad for some time and looks certain to be brought in officially to join Schwalger and Rhys Marshall as the hookers in the group if Elliott is ruled out.
While all the New Zealand Super Rugby squads are carrying injuries through the pre-season phase, Rennie admitted that this was a higher than usual toll for the Chiefs at this time of year, although several players like Nanai-Williams (groin), August Pulu (lower leg), Anscombe (both shoulders), Schwalger (knee) and Tanerau Latimer (elbow) had had scheduled remedial surgery.
"It's a big season and a lot of those guys didn't play ITM Cup to get an operation done and they're still not back in time for our season, but you've got to do it at some stage, it's the nature of the game.
"It's the nature of our season. They go for about nine months and then they've got 10 weeks with their ITM Cup team and then they get a few weeks off and they're back into it."
Other young players currently getting a taste of what it takes to be a Chief include Hawke's Bay lock Michael Allardice, Taranaki loose forward Doug Tietjens, Taranaki outside back Seta Tamanivalu and new young Waikato centre recruit out of Auckland Jordan Payne.
