Bulls 61 Chiefs 17
They say no one ever remembers who comes second. For reasons both good and bad, they just might remember that it was the Chiefs who claimed that honour in the 2009 Super 14.
While Chiefs followers will prefer to dwell on the good - a first final for the Waikato-based franchise, which became the first team to make it that far after losing the opening three games of a campaign - the main reason they are likely to stick around in the memory banks was the crushing margin of their defeat.
The 61 points rattled up by the sublime Bulls was a record, as was the 44-point margin of victory, which easily eclipsed the 30-point thumping the Brumbies gave the Sharks in 2001.
Sometimes a scoreline doesn't tell the whole story. Not this time. The Chiefs turned up at a seething Loftus Versfeld with hope in their hearts and lead in their legs. After a month of slogging along playing kick-and-chase rugby on wintry Hamilton nights, they were no match for a Bulls side who had spent the previous five weeks honing their expansive game on South Africa's hard, fast tracks.
The Chiefs went into the match aiming to emulate the 2000 Crusaders, who pipped the Brumbies by a point in Canberra to become the only team to claim a Super rugby title on a foreign field. But there are reasons travelling teams seldom succeed in finals rugby.
"Clearly it is not the easiest task, travelling over here, and they hit us with an intensity in that first 20 or 30 minutes that really took the game away from us," Chiefs coach Ian Foster said.
"You have to give them credit for that. They were very physical, very accurate and it made it very hard for us to get anything going. Our execution wasn't good. The pressure they put on us forced us to make mistakes."
The first of those mistakes came immediately after Stephen Donald had given the Chiefs an unlikely lead. Donald rounded Zane Kirchner and sent Lelia Masaga away for the first try.
Sione Laukai claimed the restart and ran away from his support towards the touchline before throwing a wild in-field pass as he was bundled into touch. The Bulls claimed the loose ball, Kirchner broke inside the Chiefs 22 and, from a quick tap after a ruck infringement, halfback Fourie Du Preez pounced to level the scores.
Having come off second best in the territorial-kicking duel, the Chiefs tried a more expansive approach. Initially it looked promising, with Dwayne Sweeney setting off on a jinking run and Aled de Malmanche thundering his way into Bulls territory.
But de Malmanche's night ended prematurely after Wynand Olivier smashed his head into the turf in a perfectly legal tackle, Du Preez pouncing on the loose ball to run 50 metres for his second. The writing was already on the wall for the Chiefs. Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha wreaked havoc in the lineouts and the Bulls played at a pace the Chiefs simply couldn't live with. The result was defensive mismatches all over the field.
When Tanerau Latimer was turned over in midfield, the Bulls went left where Du Preez and Bryan Habana were up against prop Sona Taumalolo and Richard Kahui. There was only ever going to be one result, Du Preez ghosting around Taumalolo and grubbering past Kahui for Habana to collect and race away for a third try inside the opening 15 minutes.
"We knew that they'd play with tempo and try to take our legs after all the travel," Foster said. "I really felt after the first 10 minutes when we had defended well and then got that try that it was looking good. But they kept that tempo going and for 25 minutes we really did struggle to touch the ball."
Halfback Toby Morland had a chance to keep the Chiefs in it after Kahui broke clear but the final pass went to ground. The Bulls were having no such trouble with their execution, a Steyn drop goal and a Habana intercept try on the stroke of halftime putting the contest beyond doubt.
The Chiefs will take some consolation from a 20-minute surge at the start of the second half during which Mils Muliaina scored a try and Donald kicked a penalty, but the final 20 minutes were a procession, with the Bulls running in four more tries.
"I guess we could have played the percentages and just tried to lose a little bit more comfortably, but I was proud of the way we kept trying to have a crack, even though it cost us," Foster said.
"We are gutted and disappointed to trip up at the final hurdle but in time we'll sit back and look at where we have come to and how the group has grown and I think we should be very satisfied. It was a hard night but we have come a long way.
"It was a big few weeks for us. I think we just ran out of a little bit of juice, to be honest."
After leading the Chiefs to their first final, Muliaina, yesterday named All Black captain, was also able to look on the bright side.
"The way the boys played to get us here was outstanding," he said.
"You could say that on paper there was no way we should have got here, so I take my hat off to the guys. We have made history for the Chiefs franchise and it's something we should all be proud of."
