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Clayton McMillan's frank 'from the sublime to pretty ordinary' Chiefs assessment
By Ned Lester
The Chiefs raced away to a monster first-half scoreline against Moana Pasifika on Friday night before crashing back to reality, escaping with the win. Head coach Clayton McMillan would label the performance disappointing following the game.
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Six first-half tries gave the Chiefs a 43-point tally by the break, a tally they failed to add to until a 78th-minute driving maul try to Samisoni Taukei’aho sealed the result in their favour.
In the 38 minutes before the Chiefs got over the line in the second period, Moana Pasifika made their way back into the game one play at a time, chipping away at the 36-point deficit until just eight points stood between them and the lead.
While the comeback ultimately fell short, it certainly soured a Chiefs performance that was on track for one of the biggest Super Rugby scorelines in recent years.
“I think for both teams, it seemed like we were running uphill there at some stage,” Chiefs head coach Clayton McMillan told reporters in Pukekohe.
“Look, overall happy to get the win but pretty disappointed to be fair. We were in complete control in the first half and just completely lost our way in the second.
“You’ve also got to give a lot of credit to Moana who obviously tightened their game up, got direct, physical, and we, unfortunately, didn’t respond.
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“It’s disappointing but we also look forward to a well-deserved break. It’s been a tough six weeks and the boys deserve an opportunity to go away and recharge the batteries.”
The opening six pounds have seen the Chiefs face the reigning champion Blues twice, the second-placed Crusaders, the Brumbies and the Drua in Fiji. The latter of those matchups remains their lone loss.
While the opening weeks served up some dominant wins, the games since their Fiji defeat have been closer, giving the coaches some homework over the upcoming bye week.
“We’ll have a good look at that over the next couple of days and find some specifics of where it all went wrong, but we still found enough in the tank to get over at the end and secure the victory, so we’ll focus on that at this stage.
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“Clearly, we aren’t the finished product. When we play Chiefs rugby and we do the simple things well, then we’re a tough team to live with. When we stray too far from that then we go from the sublime to pretty ordinary.
“That’s rugby, and we keep learning and growing. There’s a long way to go in the comp and we’d worry if we were playing our best rugby now. Time to take some good lessons now and come back stronger in the second half of the comp.”
The 43 first-half points remain as a statement of what the Damian McKenzie-led Chiefs attack is capable of, and the coach said he saw a motivated unit ahead of the contest. Yet, with a second half to forget, lessons had been learnt.
“I don’t get too consumed around record margins and stuff like that, I just want us to put in a performance we can be proud of.
“That first half was as good as any I’ve seen from the Chiefs in my time with the team, so that was really pleasing. I could see that coming, I thought off the back of a tough Blues game that we dusted ourselves off, we turned up at the beginning of the week with a really good mindset around wanting to play well tonight, around respecting Moana, who have been much improved and strong. They’re coming off a bye, we knew that they’d bring plenty of energy.
“Right through the warmup, I could see our intent and our focus was right where it needed to be. The result of that was that we played some sublime rugby, but unfortunately, the game of rugby is 80 minutes and not 40. So, lessons to be learned.”
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