Rugby: Chiefs may yet rue latest loss against Hurricanes

Serge Lilo of the Hurricanes is tackled by Stephen Donald of the Chiefs. Photo / Getty Images

Should the Chiefs launch one of their improbable late-season charges, yet fall just short of the playoffs, this might be the game they look back on with the greatest regret.

They did everything but win in Wellington, finally falling 29-26 after making all of the running. The Chiefs learned the painful way that some points might be scored in a more beautiful manner than others, but they're all worth the same.

The Hurricanes may not have swept the neutrals off their feet with the way they went about accruing theirs, but they scored three more than the Chiefs and that is the difference between the satisfaction of a job well done and ruing another one that got away.

"There are some things for us to look at about our finishing really," said Tana Umaga, who made an emotional return to the ground he graced as a Hurricane for many years. "We camped for long periods of time inside their 22 and we weren't able to come away with the points.

"Whereas they got into ours and they'd pick and go around the edges and get penalties."

Some of them justified, others maybe not so. The last thing the Chiefs need to do is add another story in the hard-luck catalogue but Umaga would not have been the only person leaving for Hamilton yesterday feeling that Marius Jonker had done them few favours.

The Chiefs are now one from four and bottom of the New Zealand conference. A small consolation is that all their losses have come away from home, but what hurts and heartens in unequal doses is that the Chiefs were in position to win all three of those games. Poor finishing cost them against the Brumbies, a theme that continued against the Highlanders and again on Saturday night.

They now meet the unbeaten Sharks in Hamilton on Friday night, with the six-day turnaround sure to test the powers of recovery of the battered and bruised, most notably first five-eighths Stephen Donald, who left the field with what looked like a minor leg knock.

Richard Kahui's return will be eagerly anticipated, with the feeling he might add some composure and finishing ability in midfield, maybe outside Umaga, though Foster might not want to empty the veteran's tanks this early in the campaign.

Whichever 15 takes the field will do so with very clear instructions: show patience with the ball in hand and cut down on the sort of individual errors that are costing the Chiefs points on the board and, ultimately, points on the competition ladder.