SUPER 14 * Chiefs 22 * Cheetahs 20
View Photos: Super 14 week fourKEY POINTS:
For a franchise in possession of a portfolio fat with catastrophic performances, the Chiefs really do have to invest considerable energy to set new lows.
They had a seriously good go at lowering their benchmark last night, before they finally stopped bumbling around for long enough to do the necessary.
Technically, it's not strictly true to say the Chiefs stopped bumbling around. What really happened was that Brendon Leonard did the work of 15 men and Stephen Donald again landed a late pressure kick to drag the Chiefs to victory.
If it hadn't been for the exuberance and defiance of Leonard, it's hard to see how they would have dragged themselves back into the game when down 17-0 at the break.
It was Leonard who buzzed round the fringes, got his hands on the ball and made things happen.
He scored the first Chiefs try just after halftime more by sheer willpower than anything else when he picked from a scrum, covered three metres in a flash and then somehow emerged over the line having encountered a wall of white jerseys on metres four and five.
Some risky and entirely unconvincing passing led to Sitiveni Sivivatu bringing the Chiefs five points closer a few minutes later and then it was Leonard again who burrowed to the chalk.
That it came to Donald having to hold his nerve was once again a nonsense the Chiefs should have been spared but for their own failings.
To be fair, it was also inflicted upon them by the failings of referee Paul Marks, who inexplicably failed to award a penalty try when Lelia Masaga was grappled round the neck by Eddie Fredericks.
If that decision by Marks had denied the Chiefs their victory, they would have had a handy scapegoat, which would have been dangerous.
From the gameplan to the selections to the execution - the Chiefs got the whole lot wrong.
Faced with a jumbo pack of lumbering oafs, the Chiefs tried to run through the Cheetahs. No subtlety, no shimmying, no jiggery pokery, just bam, up the guts, and didn't the Cheetahs love that.
They picked the runners up and spat them back. And this after the Chiefs said they were done with dumb football.
The Chiefs didn't have any presence at the collision. Faifili Levave manned his station admirably but without support, it was all too easy for the South Africans to dominate the breakdown.
The alternative to their fruitless ploughing of fat man's alley was to kick behind the Cheetahs and then close the space.
That, though, more often than not ended in a game of force back, with the booming left peg of Cheetahs fullback Hennie Dahniller a winner every time.
It just didn't make sense. It should have taken just one glimpse of Cheetahs prop Wilan du Preez, his girth stretching every stitch in his jersey, to realise that the visitors wouldn't agree that a fast game is a good game.
There was space all over the park, an open invitation to spread the ball wide and leave the Cheetahs to wallow in their own lactic acid, but no - the Chiefs were on route one and had missed the turning.
What must have Tanerau Latimer and Liam Messam have thought as they sat on the bench watching such gristle? Surely those two should have been on from the start, charged with upping the tempo and running the legs off the Cheetahs, who could not have been more inappropriately named.
And what must they have thought of the efforts of their backrow chum, Sione Lauaki?
The big man was wearing No 8 but appeared to have formed his own special units team, where he started off as punt returner and then evolved into punt collector, almost like a personal assistant to Mils Muliaina.
Chiefs 22 (B. Leonard 2, S. Sivivatu tries; S. Donald 2 cons, pen)
Cheetahs 20 (E. Fredericks, J. Nokwe tries; C. Barnard 2 cons, 2 pens)
