Blowhard Chiefs think its in the bag.

Ex Supersport:

Chiefs coach Dave Rennie knows his team are up against “a different beast” to the one that his side thrashed 60-21 last year and says he is preparing for a massive occasion at Newlands on Saturday.

The Chiefs have been to Cape Town twice in the last 12 months. They were here for the 2016 quarterfinal, which they won so easily, but it was the match here in April, when the Stormers produced their best performance of the season, that should have the visitors thinking they have drawn the short straw.

Had they finished ahead of the Hurricanes on the final New Zealand conference log, the Chiefs would just have been travelling to Canberra for their quarterfinal, and that should have been an easier challenge than the Stormers currently are.

“What happened in the past counts for little, particularly as last year the Stormers hadn’t played any Kiwi sides in the build-up to the quarterfinals,” said Chiefs coach Dave Rennie.

“This time they have played five New Zealand times, and have won both matches they’ve played against New Zealand sides at home. So they’re a different beast this year.”

Rennie remembers the regular season game between the two sides as an excellent encounter, and says that it will add to the occasion at the weekend.

“We know it is going to be a massive occasion again, just like it was the last time. That last game was a hell of a game of footy. We made a couple of errors and got punished. We know we need to look after the ball this time, we know they’ve got a heck of a lot of firepower at the back and a big pack (Nope with Bongi and the small loose trio it's a small pack. Wonder if Elstadt will be back?)). That’s what we expect from South African sides. Hopefully we can get a bit of the pill and put pressure on them.”

The Chiefs finished third in the New Zealand conference and thanks to the weird machinations of a competition format that thankfully will soon be consigned to history, it means they were only ranked sixth on the final combined log. The ridiculousness of the situation which sees them having to travel to play a Stormers team that finished with fewer log points than they did has not been lost on Rennie, but he appears to think that it is the more competitive games that his team has been involved in that could just give his side the edge when it counts most on Saturday.

“We haven’t put teams away this year like we would have liked, but what we have done is fronted in the big ones. We haven’t lost many games. The Hurricanes have smashed many teams, but we beat them twice. We’ve shown we have the ability to turn up when the pressure is on, and we’ll have to do that this week.”(IF IT DEPENDED UPON BEING A BIG BLOWHARD THE WEE CHIEFIES HAVE ALREADY WON!)

And that’s probably the biggest thing counting against the Stormers this time in comparison with their game at the start of April. Back then the Chiefs had the big win in the quarterfinal as their last reference point when it came to the Stormers. They now have a defeat. So this ranks among their really big games, whereas perhaps the last one didn’t.

PERSONALLY I THINK KITSHOFF NEEDS TO START AND ELSTADT MUST BE AT 7. I PREFER NOTCHE AT 8 TO CARR.

 It would be unfair of me to suggest the wee chiefies are the only blowhards around. The guppies are talking themselves up!!

The most famous win scored by the Sharks in their history was built around an aggressive, destructive scrumming platform and they will be heading to Johannesburg hoping for history to repeat itself on Saturday.

Guy Kebble, Tom Lawton and Gerhard Harding were the props with Andre Botha and Rudi Visagie locking the scrum and big Steve Atherton on one flank when the Sharks, then nicknamed the Banana Boys in their previous incarnation as Natal, beat the Blue Bulls to win the Currie Cup for the first time in 1990. Yes, wing Tony Watson scored the winning try, but it was around a massive scrumming effort that the shock win was scripted.

Thomas “the Tank Engine” du Toit is the modern version of Kebble, or at least he has become it because of the injury to Tendai Mtawarira, and he appears to be brimming with quiet confidence that the game can be won and lost upfront in the Super Rugby quarterfinal against the Lions on Saturday. And he reckons the Sharks can be the team to come out on top.

“We are excited about this game, we know how we perform has a big impact on what happens later,” said the gargantuan Du Toit, a 22-year-old who weighs in at just under 130 kilograms.

It is true that against the Lions the scrum can have a massive impact, as they do owe a lot of their momentum to the starting point, which is front-foot ball. When the Hurricanes put 50 points past them at Emirates Airlines Park last year, which was their last big defeat in the competition, the Lions had front-row players injured. It was one of the main vulnerabilities that the Hurricanes exploited.

But Du Toit’s words might be lost on people who watched his team get beaten 27-10 at Kings Park in the regular season finale last weekend. In that game, it was definitely the Lions who had the upper-hand in the scrumming later on. What needs to be taken into account, however, is that the Sharks had brought on their substitutes by then. There was a substantial shift in the scrumming balance of power early in the second half.

The Sharks won two scrum penalties in the first half in that game before conceding three in the second. Marius van der Westhuizen had the whistle then and he will again on Saturday, and Du Toit reckons that means the Sharks know what to do.

“When it comes to the scrums you build a relationship with the referee, you build the idea that you have dominance,” he said.

“Sometimes that relationship changes when you bring on your substitutes. We had the dominance in the first half but the Lions obviously had a chat at half time and they came out and scrummed differently.

Credit to them in that they made the necessary change. The pressure is on the front row for both sides because how you dominate the scrum is how you present the base from which your halfbacks can attack. You want to wheel the scrum to give your halfbacks that platform to play and the opposition is aiming for the opposite.”

Du Toit reckoned the scrums were equal when looked at over the whole match last Saturday, but this week could be different. Like the Sharks coaches who have fronted the media so far in the build-up week, Du Toit says the whole psychology of this week’s game is different.

“We are going to give it our all, don’t worry about that. The pressure was on the Lions last week to top the log and we let them, maybe because we didn’t have the right mindset, but that is not going to happen this week,” said Du Toit.

“We have to give respect where it is due and they have played very well to get to where they are, and they always play well at Ellis Park, so it is up to us to bring it on. The challenge we face is going to inspire us rather than put us off. Records are there to be broken.”

The record that Du Toit is probably referring to is the Lions’ long unbeaten sequence at the venue against South African teams. However, he will recall that his side came close to upsetting the Lions there in March, a day when the Durbanites were unfortunate not to shake off the stranglehold the Lions have exerted on them. They were the better team on the day.

“The whole psychology has changed this week. I imagine it is like a test match. It doesn’t matter how you get there (to the win), whether you are dirty or classy or whatever. You do whatever it takes.”

 Meanwhile the Bookies are favouring the Sharks and Stormers to lose. But not so fast, that esteemed rugby commentator admired by so many here, Mark Keo , says Stormers will win.
A lot of talking’s been done about the Stormers this season, but the only talking of relevance will be what is produced on the field in their Super Rugby quarter-final.

The Stormers this time a year ago lost 60-21 to the Chiefsat the same stage of the competition.

Earlier this season the Stormers beat the Chiefs 34-26 in a high-octane brilliant rugby spectacle. It ranked as one of the matches of the season for drama, excitement, tries and skills. 

The Stormers were on a high but then lost four matches in succession, firstly at home to the Lions and then all three tour matches to New Zealand.

The Stormers got back to winning ways against a 14-man Blues but then lost to the Sharks in Durban.

Post the international break the Stormers were in a great attacking form in beating the Cheetahs, Sunwolves and Bulls, but equally they coughed up plenty tries against teams ranked in the bottom five of the competition.

It’s on Saturday that the progress of Robbie Fleck’s Stormers will be judged, as much as their season could be defined.

The bookies have the Chiefs favourites and the Stormers’ woeful playoff record can’t be ignored. The Stormers have featured in eight Super Rugby playoff matches and lost seven times.

Fleck wasn’t interested in history when he spoke of the 2017 squad. The past was an uncontrollable, he said. The squad could control their season on Saturday. It was about Saturday and not what has gone before.

The Stormers this season have been a ‘two steps forward and two steps back’ kind of team. Just when you think they’ve matured as a team they produce a performance that asks too many questions and allows for too much conviction that not a heck of a lot has changed.

The Stormers this year have been true to the cliché that it takes just 80 minutes to break down a season. The Stormers were on a high after six successive early season wins. Their ball-in-hand off-loading game was being applauded, their conditioning was said to have improved and their attacking mindset was getting reward. The victories included a stunning upset of the Chiefs, but then a week later the Lions came to town and crushed the home team and every doubt about the Stormers resurfaced.

The doubts are still there and I don’t believe the Stormers in 2017 are good enough to win Super Rugby. They’re good enough to be a top eight team and if they progress past the quarter-final then the season would have been a success. 

Victory against the Chiefs would confirm the improvement of 2016 with a tangible. It wouldn’t just be an opinion; it would be the ‘W’ in the results section.

The Chiefs will be more focused in the playoffs than was the case during the league fixture but I don’t believe the Chiefs are as a good as they were a season ago. They’re a team on the wane and their performance in the latter part of the year hasn’t quite matched the hype around their quality. They’ve been winning but not with the dominance of champions-in-waiting.

The Chiefs have very talented individuals, especially among the backs but their pack has been hit and miss all season. The Stormers have the pack to neutralise the visitors and in doing so nullify the potency of the Chiefs backs.

The Stormers, in numbers one to 15, are the equal of the Chiefs and in many positions are superior. It’s in the six inches upstairs that the Stormers have to answer their doubters. If the Stormers lose it will be more a case of them being mentally fragile than inferior as rugby players.

I have the Stormers to win the quarter-final and lose in an away semi-final.

I think the bookies, like the Kiwi critics, overestimate the quality of this Chiefs team. They’re not quite as good as everyone thinks.

The 60-21 defeat was an aberration and the match at Newlands earlier this year was a more accurate reflection of the two teams. The Stormers won but the Chiefs had chances to win. There wasn’t much in it and there won’t be much in it on Saturday. I have the Stormers to win by seven to 10 points, with exciting flyhalf Damian Willemse influential in the victory.

Willemse can only be as good as his pack’s performance, and it’s here where I think the Stormers have the edge. 

Fleck couldn’t have asked for a better examination in determining the health of his squad. He gets to assess his team a year on, at the same venue and against the same opposition.

 Beenz, I'm hoping for a good match, but we are down to our 4th FH...an u20. Our centers struggle a bit on defence and our loosies are a tad on the light side...On the plus side, Eben seems to be hitting form. Kolbe is in the form of his life and Kitsie is back. Leyds seems to be doing better at 15.

 PS, I do hope Peyper can reprise his Lions Tour performance and don't drop a brain fart on us.

Stormers played brilliantly last week, some fantastic back moves and individual brilliance. Yet, Beeno is not brimming with confidence, he would rather resort to name calling (blow hards, etc). Well, of course the Chiefs coach will talk confidently he's hardly going to start crying about the S18 format, biased refs, "home field advantage" the toll travel takes, etc. No he's a good sport and avoids those facts.

 Bookies downunder agree ...... Stormers paying $2.40
                                           Chiefs .............$1.60

 
The Stormers don't belong in the competition ... the Chiefs do ... so by rights the Chief should walk it.

I'd be surprised if they didn't.

Besides that, it's only through this absurd format that the Stormers have a home quarter final match.

 

Come on Chiefs!

 

 
That's rude, BlobbieGoat.

Now say your sorry!!

Actually it's a pretty normal posture for a Stompie supporter to assume . . . except it's usually after a game. Don't think Blob is too confident!

 What a truly disgraceful pair of turncoats wee cc and wee rooitwitterbug are.  Deportation to NZ should be happening as these two loathsome toads belong there!Go for it Bob!!! In their faces!! 
JW dont confuse confidence with over confidence. Its like the wee babs thought it was their divine right to win.