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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 68 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 68 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 69 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 68 days ago

Shame about last year then aye

B
BH 69 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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Jfp123 56 minutes ago
France push All Blacks to 80th minute in narrow Dunedin defeat

Sorry, I don’t think all your points hold water.


You agree that the Top14 was sticking within the rules. Describing it as ‘attack’ing international rugby isn’t fair. It’s simply doing it’s own thing, which benefits many other rugby nations too, more of which below. NZ rugby has one system of earning money, the French have another, and it looks to me like theirs is more successful, but that’s no reason to try and shoot it down. Unlike some NZ commentators, I haven’t heard any of the French expressing the wish to interfere with how NZ organise their domestic competition and finances. Different circumstances require different arrangements.


The way you talked about earning money from home internationals, it sounds as if you think the French B team are depriving NZ of income. Really? Instead accusing the French of acting badly, wouldn’t it be better to think of ways of improving the NZ system, even it’s just being more careful who’s invited on tour. It’s well known France never send out their top players in summer.


In any case, the charge of loss of income doesn’t seem to be backed by the facts. As far as I’m aware there haven’t been any complaints about the size of the TV deal. It’s been reported that the NZ- France summer internationals are sell outs, and since you or another New Zealander - I can’t remember which set of comments it was - was complaining about how outrageously high the ticket prices are, it doesn’t sound as if NZ rugby has lowered prices and been hit in the pocket - NZ can’t have it both ways.


If NZ were to have a rethink and follow the example of SA and Scotland to allow players who sign on with a Top14 team to play for the ABs, I think NZ could use the Top14 for its own benefit. Players often improve through being exposed to different approaches, and previously hidden talent can come to light. Cheslin Kolbe was overlooked by the SA main team, until his immense talent was showcased during his time at Toulouse. More recently, Jack Willis and Blair Kinghorn have both acknowledged that Toulouse has helped them broaden and develop their skills - Willis has done quite a lot of interviews which are freely accessible online, if you want to hear what he says. Scotland have benefited, but England haven’t because of their self-imposed rules. From what Willis said around the time of the WC when he had special dispensation to play for England in consideration of the Wasps debacle, it seems Toulouse encourage their foreign players in their international ambitions, rather than acting as an insurmountable obstacle.


I don’t see where your point about home grown talent is coming from. The vast majority of the French team IS home grown talent. Listen to Squidge’s or 2 Cents podcasts on the subject before the last WC. Mauvaka and Moefana both were born in islands which are part of a French overseas territory, came to France young, trained there and have French nationality, Meafou was rejected by Aussie clubs as too large, and was advised to go to France where they appreciate size to get an opportunity to continue his career - do you think he should have been left on the scrap heap in Oz? The only French international I can think of who came from NZ is Uini Atonio, he doesn’t seem to have been appreciated in NZ and has played his entire senior club career at La Rochelle, where he’ll become a player/coach next season; he’s actually of Samoan heritage. I’ve read that NZ was interested in Patrick Tuifua, but he was born in the French territory of New Caledonia, not NZ and is moving to Toulon. Marchand, Aldegheri, Baille, Gros, Cros, Jelonche, Alldritt, Ollivon, Dupont, Penaud, LBB Lucu, Ramos, Fikou, Barrassi, Villiere etc, are all indisputably French, Ntamack is French on his mother’s side, 2nd generation French on his father’s side and has played for Toulouse since infancy, Pasolo Tuilagi has lived in France since the age of 3 and is French, similarly Joshua Brennan. I believe they have both declared their desire to play for the country where they grew up, not Samoa or Ireland. Flament, it’s true, is from Belgium, but his talents could hardly have flourished fully in a team which almost certainly isn’t fully professional. A rugby side is 15 with 8 on the bench in France as everywhere else, packed with all these talented native players, they’re not going to suck the life out of other nations. In fact, there’s a counter example. Capuozzo was born and raised in France, and I’ve heard it said both that he began playing for Italy is because he didn’t think he’d make the French team, or alternatively, that he preferred to play for the country of his paternal grandparents.


I can’t see why you say NZ, England and Ireland are more homegrown than that. De Groot, Lomax (Aus), Frizzell, Fainga’anuku (Tonga) and Christie (Scotland) and other ABs weren’t born in NZ, some of them played for other countries at U20 level, and isn’t your new guy from the Netherlands? England welcomes players born abroad, eg Manu Tuilagi, and Feyi Waboso (born and grew up in Wales who could really do with his talent). And as for Ireland, they are arguably the least home grown of the lot, as Jamison Gibson Park, James Lowe, Bundee Aki and Mack Hansen were not only not born in Ireland, they weren’t brought up there either. This is not a criticism, as I don’t think it’s an issue to get hung up about.


If you’re referring to the number of foreign players in the Top14, ProD2, I reckon it’s a good thing. Players from upcoming second tier nations like Uruguay, Spain and Portugal are exposed to top flight competition and can play fulltime - where else would they get such a good chance to hone their skills? Argentina too is strengthened when it comes to the WC, even if not all their Top 14 players can play in every set of internationals - they still play in a lot of them. Then there the ex-internationals who get a chance to earn decent money before they retire, and enjoy thrill of French rugby. I reckon they deserve that and it shows good money can be earned from rugby, which must help stop talented youngsters from turning to other sports.


I don’t think the Top14 should be charged with making rugby financially unsustainable. I don’t think its existence was the reason Wasps, London Irish and Worcester Warriors went bust. Covid, the English system and the clubs themselves were to blame. I don’t think the Top 14 is the threat you think it is to other nations - the Top 14 and Pro D2 may be large and wealthy, but they’re not infinitely large mopping up all the top players from across the world, they have to obey strictly enforced rules about a compulsory number of Jiff players and a salary cap, which if you count the special allowances for marquee players etc, is comparable in size to the English one. That’s not to say some of the French clubs aren’t very rich, have excellent facilities etc., it’s just they can’t spend all their money on players wages.

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