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We all know the Chiefs are the best team in Super Rugby

HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND - MARCH 01: (L-R) Quinn Tupaea congratulates Gideon Wrampling with Anton Lienert-Brown of the Chiefs on scoring a try during the round three Super Rugby Pacific match between Chiefs and ACT Brumbies at FMG Stadium, on March 01, 2025, in Hamilton, New Zealand. (Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images)

I’ve felt bad for the Chiefs this season. 

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We all know they’re the best team in Super Rugby, and it’s seemed a shame that they have to negotiate so many weeks of round-robin football until they can prove it. 

We also all know the Chiefs should have won the competition last year. But, such was the ineptitude and naivety of their performance in the final against the Blues, that the match was hardly even a contest. 

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Well, the round-robin’s already done them in, by the looks. 

It’s not just that they lost 35-17 to the Hurricanes on Saturday. Defeats happen, especially on the road. 

No, I fear the Chiefs’ challenge for the title is over because of the injury-enforced absence of Anton Lienert-Brown. 

I try not to have favourite players, but I’ll happily admit Lienert-Brown is among the footballers whose efforts I appreciate most. 

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Not flashy, nor big or especially quick. Skill-wise, Lienert-Brown’s competent but you wouldn’t say his passing and kicking games were elite. 

It’s the work rate and organisational side of his game that really appeal to me. The amount of times he arrives in cover defence or backs up a break is phenomenal. 

Lienert-Brown reads the game so well and his ability to snuff out opposition attacks is arguably without peer in this country. 

He’s not going to dominate any end-of-season highlight reels, but the value of his talk and of his effort is immeasurable to the Chiefs. 

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I think Saturday showed us how gaping a hole’s been left by Lienert-Brown. 

Damian McKenzie will be back any day now and that’s a huge boost to the Chiefs’ attack. McKenzie is, by far, the most accomplished playmaker in Super Rugby Pacific. 

His ability to generate points, or at the very least points-scoring opportunities, makes the Chiefs incredibly dangerous. 

It’s just that the Hurricanes, with a makeshift first five-eighth in Ruben Love, took them apart at Sky Stadium.  

I can’t say for certain that Bailyn Sullivan wouldn’t have scored four tries if Lienert-Brown was in the Chiefs’ midfield, but I certainly suspect it. 

The Chiefs have all the talent in the world to blow other teams off the park. Their best rugby is absolutely brilliant. 

But they were found badly wanting in last year’s final. On an occasion – and in wet conditions – that called for accuracy and organisation, the Chiefs played like it was any other round-robin game. 

Who knows? Maybe a frenzy of attacking football will work for the Chiefs, should they make this season’s decider. 

I just think that, without Lienert-Brown, they’re far less likely to be able to defend the mistakes that inevitably come from playing adventurous rugby. We’ll see. 

I get that Lienert-Brown isn’t the most exciting player on the planet. I understand why some people can’t see why he’s a fixture in the All Blacks’ best 23. 

But I say to those people, did you watch the Chiefs on Saturday and did it give you some appreciation of Lienert-Brown’s value to that side?  

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Comments

6 Comments
G
GM 79 days ago

Hmmm. Daniel Rona, in at centre for ALB, scored 2 tries for the Chiefs, so ALB didn’t seem to be missed on attack. On D, ALB is regularly beaten on the outside, done for pace, and there’s no way he could have stopped at least two of Sullivan’s tries, unless he could have magically reversed Scooter’s yellow card. Love to see Razor invest in the future, the likes of Higgins and Proctor and AJ, and bring the international curtain down on the perennial strugglers at test level, the ALBs and Havilis. The French series would be ideal.

S
SM 79 days ago

The best team in super rugby hahaha, this is how we ended up with Foster and crew sports articles written by people who don't get the game. Having said that I do believe ALB is way better than poor old Reiko 😌

C
Cantab 80 days ago

A champion team turns it on when it really matters which is of course the playoff rounds. I suspect that while they have games where they look a million dollars they seem to stumble when it matters. Ditto Blues & Canes whereas the Crusaders tend to start slowly but usually fire on all systems when needed.

B
BH 79 days ago

Shame about last year then aye

B
BH 80 days ago

This article will annoy the hell out of SC, who will drone on and on about how bad ALB is…


The Chiefs issue isn’t the fact they’re missing ALB. It’s when their discipline falls ill (especially in the forwards), it spreads around the team like a disease and they can’t get rid of it by end of the game.


They’ve won a few games without DMac before, but Jacomb was particularly poor last weekend. Unfortunately Trask is out injured. And when Shooter Stevenson is cold, he’s done. For some reason they keep picking Bradley Slater at hooker, who is nowhere near in the same league as Taukei’aho and McAlister.


I doubt they’ll beat the mighty Crusaders on their own turf, who have turned a corner in the last month after getting smashed by the Chiefs and Moana Pasifika at the start of the season. Both teams have their weaknesses though and it should be an epic game. DMac and Sititi need to start for them to have any chance.

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JW 11 minutes ago
Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

Nice, that’s good to hear, I was worried for the tackler and it increasing concussions overall.


My question is still the same, and the important one though. Where the rate of concussions in Fed 2 high? Of course if there where only three concussions, and they were reduced now to one, then there is no need for the new laws etc.


There are two angles to this discussion, mine above about player welfare, and of course the that which you raise, legal responsibility. More, the legal responsibility we are concerned with is what’s happening now.


WR don’t really know much about CTE I wouldn’t think, whether it happens from innocuous things like heading a ball, or from small knocks or big knocks that don’t heal. Right now they are ensuring the backside is clean by implementing laws to rule out any possibility they didn’t do enough. So once they understand the problem more they may realise some things are overboard.


The other legal responsibility is the one you are talking about in France, the past. Did the LNR and WR know about the severity and frequency of CTE in rugby? That is the question in that debate. If they didn’t know then theres nothing they could have done, so there is no worry. Further, what we may have now is a situation where 90% of those court actions might not happen in future thanks to the new framework we already have around HIA and head contact processes. Your English example is only going to be an issue if future players still continue to receive CTE (as that is obviously bad), as it is now, the players have taken on their own responsibility by ignore advice. No doubt some countries, like France and New Zealand, will lower their tackle height, but as long as the union has done an adequate job in advising of the severity of the problem at least the legal shadow over the community game will have gone.

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