Chiefs - where there's life there's hope

What do you do when your team is propping up the table, semifinal hopes are all but gone and there's still six rounds to play?

You don't climb into a hole, pull the cover over and hope the campaign ends quickly. As Chiefs' coach Ian Foster put it, being parked at the bottom of the Super 12 table is "a bit lonely".

With one win from five matches and a trip to South Africa still to come, the next few weeks could be grim. But Foster's team will operate on the "where there's life there's hope" philosophy.

The 28-16 loss to the Hurricanes in Wellington hurt, but there were enough encouraging nuggets for Foster to be confident wins will come.

"I felt we lifted quite a bit from the start of the championship to that game. That level is more like what we need on a weekly basis," he said. "The disappointing thing was that when we did have opportunities, we didn't put points on the board."

Still, he's not despondent and knows the tales of teams who have put a bad first half of the season behind them and gone on to make the semifinals.

"That's reality. We've come through the first five weeks with a number of guys either coming back from injury or not playing. We saw the impact of Sitiveni Sivivatu on our team, and the challenge now is to get the playing levels right week in, week out."

Foster also discovered that when you're down and need the rub of the green, the breaks don't go your way.

A hairline forward pass call prevented a seven-pointer 15 minutes from the end. Had Keith Lowen gone on to score it would have been 23-all and everything to play for. A similarly tight line call went the Hurricanes' way in the first half leading directly to halfback Piri Weepu's try.

Still, Foster is upbeat about several aspects of the Chiefs display, notably the combination of the Pacific Islands back three, Sivivatu, Sosene Anesi and Sailosi Tagicakibau.

Sivivatu, having his first game back after shoulder surgery, thirsted for work and fullback Anesi was perhaps the pick of the team, especially playing in an unfamiliar role.

"I like the combination, it worked well, now we've just got to get a bit more bite inside those three to buy a little more space."

Just when the Chiefs had their fingers crossed that All Black lock Keith Robinson was on the point of a return, he tweaked a hamstring at the end of training last week. It's looking like a three-week break, and raises the question of whether he will be taken on the South African trip this month.

The Chiefs have home games against the Sharks and the Cats in the next fortnight before hitting the road. That means Robinson, sidelined for several months after back surgery, might be fit for one game in the republic - but without another warmup club game - and the Chiefs' need to weigh up whether it's worth taking him on that basis.

"It's a minor thing but when you've worked six months trying to get back it's a bit of a blow," Foster said. "I really feel for him."

Captain Jono Gibbes was replaced early in the second half because of a tight hamstring, but should be fit for Saturday's match against the Sharks.