Chiefs v Rebels live Chat

Good morning all.

For those of you who want to watch the game streaming via internet here is the site with the links:

http://www.wiziwig.tv/competition.php?part=sports&discipline=rugby

 Beeno, Cloudy, Sasuke San... where are you all. Too much partying last night?  lol

 9 - 0

Chiefs are playing it in the forwards at the moment.

Rebs ball no time left on the clock.

 Chiefs win a very unenthusiatic win - just ground it out. Rebs play ok.

Congrats to the Chiefs. Rebs record away is really bad & it continues.

The Chiefs broke their sequence of draws by beating the Melbourne Rebels 22-16 in a tightly-contested Vodacom Super Rugby match in Hamilton on Saturday.

After drawing with the Vodacom Bulls and the Toyota Cheetahs in South Africa, the Super Rugby champions will be pleased to have picked up the four points that maintain their challenge in the New Zealand conference and on the overall log. However, as the scoreline would suggest, they were given quite a fright in the process and were far from convincing.

Indeed, when with five minutes to go they were being penalised metres from their own line, and had to set themselves for a sequence of defensive scrums in good attacking positions for the Rebels, it looked distinctly like the Melbourne team might score their first win over these opponents and in New Zealand.

That they weren’t able to press home the advantage they held when a yellow card was brandished at Chiefs player Pauilisi Maku five minutes from the end, might have been down to their own poor decision when they elected to take a tap penalty rather than take another set scrum. The Rebels had outscrummed the Chiefs and might have been more composed than they were with the tap, where they surrendered possession when the ball was spilled in front of the Chiefs' posts and flyhalf Gareth Anscombe was able to clear.

The Rebels did get a bit of possession after that, but they were never as close to the line again, and the threat was averted for a home team that showed clear relief at the final whistle. Perhaps it was because of the way they were stretched in their two matches in South Africa, but the Chiefs looked out on their feet at the end and a better team would probably have put them away. So it goes without saying, the champions have much work to do if they want to retain that status.

The Rebels could kick themselves though, for apart from the decision to take the tap instead of the scrum, Jason Woodward also missed a kick that was fairly regulation by his standards and would have had the visitors just three points behind in the final minutes when the Chiefs were giving away penalties with seeming impunity.

It would seem the rebels should have won this one. Chiefs at end were giving away penalties with impunity? Sounds familiar?