Dylan Cleaver: Grinch may yet steal Foster's dreams of title

The Chiefs would have returned home last night feeling like all their Christmases had come at once - but there's a Grinch sitting in the corner drinking Ian Foster's eggnog.

The Chiefs have beaten the Sharks, the Lions and the Force, three teams that look likely to occupy the lower reaches of the table when the championship ends.

They needed a last-minute penalty to scrape home against an increasingly dysfunctional Sharks and conceded 65 points against a woeful Lions line-up a week later.

The Force? Injuries have left them hopelessly under-manned.

Those are the reasons for Chiefs' fans to temper their expectations, which have no doubt ratcheted up several notches, but there are many more reasons to usher the Grinch out of the room.

First, you need a bit of luck when it comes to the draw, especially when you do not have the capacity to play opponents home and away over the course of a season (which is, ultimately, the only way to run a fair competition, but that's another argument altogether).

The key is to make the most of a fortuitous draw.

The Bulls did so last year when they were handed a bunch of patsy opponents in the early rounds, so by the time they left the Republic they knew they could afford to drop the odd game on their Australasian tour.

Second, they have players in key positions in great form, and very good players who will return to the squad to add depth.

Stephen Donald has never started a season this strongly and, lo and behold, neither have the Chiefs.

To mangle golf commentator Johnny Miller's famous put-down of Craig Parry's swing, Donald might have a punting style that would make Barry John puke, but he is goalkicking like a dream and steering the good ship Chiefs adroitly around the park.

Where last season his default option was to put his head down and try to break the advantage line himself, he is now picking his moments to run and the result of his balanced option-taking has been to make the field wider and bring his talented three-quarters more into the mix.

Mils Muliaina will be one of the beneficiaries of Donald's confidence when he re-enters the fray on Friday.

Players that would have been seen as back-ups for their more fancied colleagues - we're talking about Mike Delany, Dwayne Sweeney, Jackson Willison, Tim Nanai-Williams, Culum Retallick, Romana Graham, Hika Elliot, Colin Bourke, Nathan White, Junior Poluleuligaga and Jarrad Hoeata - all have game time under their belt and look in good form, giving Foster the sort of depth Pat Lam, say, can only dream about.

Third, they have shown they can win in different ways. The Durban victory was ground out in dreadful conditions in front of a hostile crowd.

They blew away the Lions with exceptional handling and elusive running (we'll conveniently ignore the fact they departed Ellis Park in all but body 20 minutes early).

Yesterday they probably came closest to the blueprint as set out by Foster and his assistants. Sound work at the set piece was allied to some slick training-ground moves, with the added bonus of individual brilliance in the form of the returning Lelia Masaga. Their defence was sturdy, too.

Four penalties were their only concession of note, until they conceded a sloppy intercept try when chasing a bonus point late in the match.

Fourth, they play seven of their last 10 matches in friendly confines.

There's a lot that can go wrong between now and the middle weeks of May, but the signs are so far good.

So raise your glasses and make a festive toast to the Chiefs.