After the Final

By Benji Crossley

The laments of a loser on the drive home from Hamilton last night. My takes as an unashamed Chiefs fan on last night’s final.

1. Tamaiti Williams has to start for the All Blacks. He was everywhere tonight. He’s been an undoubted talent for a couple of seasons now but has taken his games to new levels this season. He was the most effective Crusaders forward at the breakdown.

 

2. Emoni Narawa should very much be in the conversation to start for the All Blacks. Best player on the park tonight for me and outshone Leicester. Plus he proved he has a really good kicking game.

3. Damien MacKenzie was outstanding again. His kicking game was brilliant. Probably just edged Richie Mo’unga. The Crusaders threw big bodies at him all night and he hit everything that came down his channel.

4. The only real gripe I’ll have with the referee is the forward pass in the first half that he missed that ended up being important, I can’t remember exactly but I don’t think the Chiefs got the ball back between that missed call and the Crusaders scoring a try. But there are other people who can have their say with passes like that.

5. While D Mac was clearly offside for the disallowed try, it would be interesting to look at every time that throw over the back occurs and see if people are onside. It was clearly the turning point for the game. That’s try is given and the Chiefs have all the momentum and a decent lead. While the Crusaders didn’t score from the ensuing penalty and assault on the Chiefs line, it felt like the Chiefs never got the momentum back after that moment.

6. It was probably not the best night for Shaun Stevenson to miss a couple of reasonably straight forward tackles. However he did score one and made an assist.  But we’re all watching now.

7. The Cane penalty was right in front of us and clear as day but I won’t have a pop at him as he was outstanding all night and has been great all season.

8. Overall, I’m still trying to figure out how we lost, feel like we were the better team but Crusaders were ahead at the end which is all that matters I guess. A bit like that first Ashes test?

This is a very good Chiefs team lead by an outstanding young coach (Bay of Plenty loose forwards make great coaches apparently) and with the core of this team back next season we will win titles I am sure. But boy it would have been nice to win this one.

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