The Chiefs captain has been working on a few things in training to avoid making crucial errors in front of a home crowd tonight.
It might be a step too far to describe it as a poisoned chalice, but the Chiefs captaincy hasn't been too kind to its recipients this season.
Mils Muliaina relinquished it for the first three games as he recuperated from a gruelling 2009. He came back for four games, lost the first three and broke his thumb in the fourth, ending his Super 14 campaign just as it was starting.
His stand-in, Sione Lauaki, missed the first game through injury, copped a two-match suspension in his second and then got himself into a whole heap of well-documented, off-field trouble that will culminate in him being sentenced by the courts on May 6.
So, Liam Messam, the third-choice skipper who captained against the Sharks and the Force, has been entrusted with the role again.
Fair dos, too - in a season where it seems that a light breeze is all that is needed to send more Chiefs to A&E, Messam has not only started every game in the No 6 jersey but he has been consistently good, highlighted by an outstanding performance last week against the Highlanders at Mt Maunganui.
It was the sort of performance that slipped by unobtrusively.
"Yeah, I thought I did the little things right against the Highlanders and am looking forward to building on those things this week against the Bulls," Messam said.
According to his critics, and one in particular, Messam's game has too often ignored the little things while focusing on the head-turning stuff - the clever pass, the sidestep, the show-and-go.
It was what made him a compelling player, but Messam found it harder to transfer those skills to the biggest stage. His failure to look after the "little things" led to a rebuke last year.
"So you say to Liam ... 'You've got to fix these things up, you just can't turn the ball over and miss crucial tackles'. He's got some things that win games, but he's got some things that lose games and that's the disappointment for us, and I'm sure the disappointment for him. At this level, you just can't afford to have guys making errors that cost you, because you'll lose the test match. It might be great to watch, but All Blacks can't afford to lose too often." - Graham Henry, July 5, 2009.
It wasn't just Messam who was taken aback by the bluntness of the assessment.
"They [the All Black coaches] were very explicit about his failings, but I've just seen him continue to grow," said Chiefs coach Ian Foster. "He's been great for us. He's working hard on his tackle quality, he's working hard on his decisions around his off-loading and his contact work. They're two clear areas that have been identified, there's a lot of justification for those areas [being identified], and he's working hard on them.
"But he does a lot of other things, too. He's very good at other things."
That's the key for Foster. The thing he feared was that the reproof would send Messam into his shell, negating some of the aspects of his game that make him special to the Chiefs.
"That's the balance," Foster said. "It's really important that players don't just focus on areas they need to improve.
"It needs to be a focus, but it shouldn't become the major focus because you end up training and coaching the flair out of them. We like Liam's game, there's a nice balance ... in terms of his running and his decision-making. I just want to keep giving him the licence to express himself."
As for Messam, he took the criticism on board. It might well be that he never becomes an All Black great, or even a regular test player, but he's not going to die wondering.
"[The All Black coaches] gave me 'work-ons' at the start of the season and I'm trying to implement those into my game. It doesn't clash with what I'm trying to do here at the Chiefs, they're more about the dynamics of being a football player.
"I don't play with the All Blacks in mind, I put all my focus into the Chiefs. If I play to my potential with the Chiefs, those sorts of things take care of themselves."
The most noticeable change in his game has been his willingness to take the ball into contact rather than trying to throw the miracle pass. It's less pleasing on the eye, but more pragmatic.
"It's one of the biggest steps I've taken so far - my ball retention. I've been working really hard with the skills coach [Scott McLeod], making sure I keep ticking those boxes."
What helps Messam in his drive to become a more complete footballer is the Chiefs' credo of "searching for perfection". It's a way of retaining focus when the season gets to its sharp end.
"It is that old cliche of one game at a time," Messam said. "We haven't been looking at the points table. Instead, we've been searching for perfection, as we like to call it, in our game.
"It's not about kidding ourselves, we know there will be mistakes in our games, especially with the the way we play, but we still try to reach our limits."
As for leadership, Messam is also happy to fall back on a cliche, saying it's about actions rather than words. Never will that be more tested than against the Bulls' battle-hardened pack tonight, a pack with something to prove after being outplayed by the Blues at Eden Park last week.
"We've just got to enjoy it. Most of the guys in our forward pack like that physical, aggressive game based on intimidation. We're excited by the challenge of playing a big, confrontational pack in front of our home crowd."
