Charlie Ngatai says his midfield combination with Sonny Bill Williams is starting to gel and will need to against the Hurricanes' seasoned All Blacks duo this weekend.
If selected in the 12 and 13 jerseys as expected, Williams and Ngatai will be up against the regular test combination of Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith on Saturday.
Nonu and Smith are part of an in-form Canes backline but, with first-five Beauden Barrett out injured, more responsibility will fall on their shoulders to direct the home team's attack in Wellington as well as defence.
With Nonu missing last year's All Black northern tour it was Williams who paired mostly with Smith, and how he goes against Nonu will be watched closely by national selectors. Maori All Blacks captain Charlie Ngatai doesn't lose much in comparison to his rivals and believes he and Williams have found the right chemistry together.
"Me and Sonny have worked pretty much the whole season together and are just starting to get our combination right," Ngatai said.
"It's working well for us and we're feeding off each other so hopefully we can pair up this weekend and it will be good."
Ngatai said the Hurricanes were strong in most aspects, with dangerous ball players, but were particularly lethal on counter-attack.
"We've seen some clips and they've just been splitting teams open, so if we can combat that I think we'll do pretty well."
One way of reducing the effectiveness of the Canes' countering is to reduce the number of turnovers and ball handling errors the Chiefs have been committing lately.
"It has to be error-free in a big game like that. We've just got to come out and do the right things and put a good accurate performance out there."
Last year the Chiefs were hammered 45-8 by the Hurricanes in the captial, Ngatai admitting they had found the going tough before reversing the result in Hamilton after the June break.
"We just didn't turn up (in Wellington last year) but this time I think we are a lot better prepared coming off the bye, have freshened up and are really looking forward to it," he said.
"The pressure's on us at the moment [with the Hurricanes top of the New Zealand conference], but that's good, we thrive on that."
Ngatai said the bye, while only being four weeks after their first, had come at a good time in terms of freshening up the minds of players and enabling a few to get over bumps and bruises. They went into it more than a little grumpy after their losing performance against the Rebels in Melbourne, which put them under even more pressure.
"We were disappointed in our performance but we can turn it around and put in a good performance on Saturday. I know we've got the team that can lift [against the Hurricanes] and it's going to be a good challenge for us."
Ngatai expects both teams to try and throw the ball around despite the likely wet conditions, but said defence would be key.
"Defence wins games and we've got to have a good defence this week against the Hurricanes who have got a good counter-attack team - we've got to be sharp on that," he said.
