Rugby: Lauaki pays for leading ill-discipline

Referee Marius Jonker speaks to Chiefs captain Sione Lauaki. Photo / Getty Images

The judiciary might have taken one of the Chiefs biggest weapons out of play for the next two weeks, but at least it made one decision easier for Ian Foster - the Sione Lauaki captaincy experiment is over.

It took just 13 minutes for the shortcomings in Lauaki's leadership to come to the fore, when he was sinbinned for a spear tackle on Lions centre Deon van Rensburg.

For that transgression the barnstorming No 8 spent 10 minutes in the cooler and will miss the next two rounds of the Super 14, away to the Force in the early hours of Sunday and home to the Reds in week four.

Lauaki appeared before advocate Jannie Lubbe in Johannesburg yesterday. The backrower pleaded guilty to the dangerous tackle charge and argued the yellow card was sufficient punishment. Lubbe disagreed and suspended him until March 6, the day after the Reds encounter.

The Chiefs ill-discipline was a striking feature of a bizarre match.

Lauaki set the tone and the rest of his side followed, somehow fitting in the time to score nine tries while having three players sinbinned and failing miserably to adapt to Marius Jonker's interpretations.

To be fair to Foster's men, consistency was not Jonker's strong point.

After cosily telling Lions' lock Willem Stolz to "keep it clean" after he flagrantly elbowed Aled de Malmanche in the face (Stolz was subsequently cited and suspended for one week), Jonker needed little provocation to wave yellow in the faces of Chiefs' players.

De Malmanche was binned for a technical offence, briefly reducing the Chiefs to 13 men and, most bizarrely, Richard Kahui was given 10 minutes after he was wrongly identified as the perpetrator of a soft lifting tackle.

With Lauaki out of the picture, Liam Messam, who led the side well in trying circumstances against the Sharks, will likely take over the reins again before handing them to a well-rested Mils Muliaina a week later.

All told, despite the sublime/ridiculous scenes in Johannesburg, things are sweet in Chiefsland. The notoriously slow starters have nine points coming out of the blocks and now face a severely weakened and demoralised Western Force in Perth before returning to home comforts.

No wonder Foster tried so hard to drink from the well of positivity, even if it left a bitter aftertaste.

"The positives are pretty clear and obvious. We got nine points and we are delighted," he said.

"We don't think we have ever won two games over here [South Africa] in a row. We are really excited about that side of it and it's a mark of where we are as a team that we are still feeling pretty flat after scoring 72 points.

"Clearly our discipline was the disappointing feature of this game for us. We went backwards today from where we were against the Sharks. Physically we hit the wall a bit and a little bit of mental lapsing created a pretty disappointing last 15 minutes.

"So there are some pretty annoying negatives from that game but overall we will fly out to Perth pretty pleased with the two wins."

Pleasing, too, that centre Richard Kahui is back to the form that has seen him earn eight test caps.

Stephen Donald, whose slow starts to the season often provide a window to the Chiefs, is off to a flyer, which is great news for Foster, but not so great for Mike Delany who is desperate to stake a claim to the No 10 jersey.