McMillan’s wish comes true

‘‘To give yourself the absolute best chance of winning, you’ve got to be playing your finals at home. It’s bloody hard to go anywhere else and win those games.’’

That was Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan, 10 days out from the start of the Super Rugby Pacific season.

Coming off successive unsuccessful trips to Christchurch for playoff matches in his first two years in charge, in 2021 and 2022, and armed with the knowledge that 89 of the 110 finals fixtures in men’s Super footy have been won by the hosts, he was forthright in declaring what his team’s ambition had to be in 2023 if they were to end their nine-year title drought.

Now, three and a half months later, McMillan’s big wish has come true, after his side’s 31-21 win over the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday night.

Not only did that seal the Chiefs top seeding, and ensure them home advantage throughout the playoffs, but icing the cake was that they achieved it with one regular season round still up their sleeves as well.

That means, with nothing now riding on this Saturday night’s game against the Force in Perth, the coach will have the luxury of sitting out several of his big guns to freshen them for the finals.

Tupou Vaa’i and Anton LienertBrown missed the game against the Brumbies on All Blacks rest weeks, though McMillan had said they would rejoin the squad in Perth, while it’s not expected the Chiefs will send any personnel the other way, and rather embrace the opportunity for the players to bond together on this fortnight across the ditch leading into the finals.

Saturday afternoon’s Fijian Drua v Reds game in Suva is also sure to capture plenty of their attention, as if the hosts win, it could well, depending on Friday night results, be the Queenslanders who would finish in eighth and therefore be the Chiefs’ quarterfinal opponents, of course having been the only team to topple them so far this season.

Despite that, McMillan still sees the Brumbies as ‘‘obviously the best Australian team’’ and labelled them ‘‘a massive threat’’ for the title.

A rematch in the semifinals could yet be on the cards, as a Brumbies v Hurricanes 4 v 5 quarterfinal takes shape, but the Canberrans will know they will have to bring more to the table after the Chiefs – who had lost three of the last four to them – muscled up in a big way for a performance McMillan labelled as ‘‘incredibly pleasing’’.

‘‘I thought our guys prepared really well all week and came over with a great mindset to want to nullify their game,’’ he said.

‘‘I think our defensive effort was huge ... our maul D in particular was really strong, and off the back of that, [in] phase play we made really good decisions, we got up and banged them.

‘‘It was pretty relentless, the boys didn’t stop, and that was the most pleasing thing.’’

Indeed, the visitors to GIO Stadium racked up 210 tackles to the hosts’ 135, though missed only 23 to the Brumbies’ 33.

Co-captain Sam Cane was right amongst the defensive display, topping the game’s tackle count, with 20, and credited his side’s work ethic, in what he noted was a great sign going into finals footy.

While proud of the effort against a ‘‘very tough’’ Brumbies unit, Cane still suggested his side could have closed out the game more efficiently, and that that ruthless mindset was what was required for them to ultimately kick on. ‘‘The mentality is we know we’re going to have to keep improving and keep fine-tuning our game, because if we think we’re happy with where we’re at, it won’t be good enough come finals time,’’ he said.

‘‘We’ve been pretty hard on ourselves, we’ve been pretty picky, because we know it doesn’t matter how many games you win during the season, it’s the ones at the back end that count, so we’re building towards those.’’