Chiefs: Stronger & Stronger

The Chiefs have added Hawke's Bay fly-half Ihaia West to their first-team squad ahead of the Super Rugby campaign due to injury concerns.

West, who shone in the ITM Cup for the Magpies, scored 167 points for the outfit which saw him included in the recent Maori All Blacks squad.

Many were surprised not to see him earn a full-time Super Rugby contract as West had to make do with a wider training spot at the champions.

But with concerns over Robbie Robinson, Gareth Anscombe and also Tom Marshall, the Chiefs have opted to hand West a Super Rugby deal. 

I have been following the Super series from early days.    In the first final ever I was in Istanbul when the final was playing.   Riding in a bus I heard some Afrikaans being spoken and asked the couple when they left SA and was told they were from Johannesburg and  left the Monday after the match.   They told me the Lions won.

The NZRU was very clever - they realised they could only win the competition if they concentrate their best players in one franchise and leave the others as also runs.   I stared off with the Blues and later on the mantle fell n the Crusaders.     In the meantime the four teams representing SA was decided on the basis of performance in the CC competitions - the top 4 teams on the CC log was the participants.

The latter arrangement was only changed more than a decade after the competition actually started and combination teams was chosen on an area basis - but that was not ideal either.   It  was only in 2006 onwards where the franchise system was really introduced and SA teams started to improve in performances in the competition. 

As the number of teams increased - the NZRU started to expand the system to cover two teams and the favoured ones now are the Chiefs and the Crusaders.   The rest are left to be on the bottom half of the log as was the case last year.

It would be interesting to see how the competition pans out this year.   The Crusaders have the stronger forward combination - the Chiefs the backs.   New Zealand does not have enough top class forwards to spread to two teams - so one has to suffer.   Which of the NZ teams will prevail?     I have a suspicion it would be the Chiefs that would make it to the top of the NZ conference log.