First take: Subs to scrum reap rewards

Brad Weber fires away a pass during the Chiefs' win over the Stormers. Photo / Getty

No scrum, no win, the French maintain. It's an old rugby saying many suggest is not as relevant in the modern era.

Try telling that to the Chiefs. They were scrummed into the Newlands dirt and stripped of one platform which made their quest to topple the high-flying Stormers so much tougher.

While they lost the bulk of those eight men contests, substitutions bit into both team's patterns and allowed the Chiefs to muster enough of their dash to inflict a first loss on the Stormers. Maybe there's a lesson there for coaches who favour subs by numbers routines.

Who said scrummaging was a dreary part of the game? It was fascinating to watch the Chiefs' reaction to their problem, to see what ideas they had to counter their issue. It was more than an issue at the break, it was looking like a disaster zone.

It's not often you see Ben Tameifuna, Hika Elliot and Pauliasi Manu popped out of the scrum with bewildered looks about their work but the Stormers made it a persistent occurrence.

In the duel of the marmalade melons, Steven Kitsoff drilled Tameifuna and on the other side Vincent Koch was so destructive on Pauliasi Manu that the Chiefs loosehead was pulled at the interval.

Koch is a loan player but the Stormers should be signing him on indefinitely and he must be playing himself into the Springbok squad.

His core work was top quality while his chin-music tackle on SBW was a rare bell-ringer for the heavyweight boxing champ and Kitsoff showed his athletic qualities with a similar sack on Aaron Cruden.

Both Stormers props were gone after an hour, pulled in the name of progress which coincided with the Chiefs flourishing finish, the Stormers' demise and what should be some memos for every coach about change for change sake.