KEY POINTS:
Clarke Kent has been known to do a nice line in stunning transformations but even he would have to admire the way the Chiefs have gone from shambolic to heroic.
The bumbling, timid lot who faffed around at the start of the campaign have found themselves in the last few weeks and now look like a playoff side.
If it hadn't been for a brief reversion to shambolic for the final quarter last night the Chiefs might well have put 50 on one of the best teams in the competition.
Not too much should be made of the Sharks late comeback.
They started playing football after the fork had been stuck in and they were declared done.
The four-try, second-half blitz was never enough for the Chiefs camp to be seriously worried about losing, but according to skipper Jono Gibbes, it brought a sobering cloud.
"You go in that changing shed and the lads are not down on themselves but they are not over the top," said Gibbes.
"We got 40 minutes of how we wanted to play the game but we still haven't nailed the whole thing. For those of us who have been around a bit that is pretty satisfying that we still got a bit more left in us."
An 80-minute shift by the Chiefs will be worth watching. Maybe the Sharks had used up more gas than they liked against the Blues and maybe they were always there for the taking, but, still, the Chiefs made impressive work of the execution until they packed up shop 20 minutes before home time.
The Chiefs took the view the best way to beat the Sharks was to pound away relentlessly. They couldn't let the South Africans settle - give them any hint that they weren't up for it.
Sione Lauaki did a pretty decent job of sending out the right messages, hammering off the back of the scrum and hurling himself into the Sharks midfield.
Gibbes and Keith Robinson in the boiler room chugged around with their usual menace and for the first time this season Marty Holah chipped in with a timely reminder that he is a No 7 who knows how to rattle an upstart No 10.
Just as Francois Steyn appeared to be settling into a rhythm Holah clobbered him, albeit high, but it did the job of making the youngster wary and he was posted to the wing.
The Chiefs complemented their urgency and commitment with clinical finishing. Wave after wave opened the way for simple hands to put Lelia Masaga over in the corner after 12 minutes. Tasesa Lavea went over twice before half-time when he managed to flop on one charge-down and a nicely weighted Stephen Donald chip.
When the impressive Brendon Leonard went under the sticks a couple of minutes after the break, that was everything the Chiefs wanted. They had the game and the bonus point safely in the bag.
They probably also had the other contenders feeling less self-assured. In the past two weeks the Chiefs have effectively said to hell with defending and played champagne rugby.
It didn't look a finals brand of football and they cleverly switched to a kick-and-chase game last night that pressured the Sharks back three.
The Chiefs were happy not to compete at the lineout. They backed themselves to compete against the drive on the ground and for the most part they succeeded.
Rather than fast and wild football, the pack hunkered down and Leonard displayed a booming left boot that kept hoisting. The chasers did the rest.
Poor old Percy Montgomery couldn't get his howitzer wound up in time to release the pressure and when Steyn switched to the wing he made the schoolboy error of believing he could run through the arriving army of black jerseys.
"We were conscious it was going to be a bit slippery so we wanted to put the ball in front of us and back our chasing game," said Chiefs coach Ian Foster. "It was pretty well documented we wanted to tighten our defence and I felt the first 50 minutes was pretty outstanding until the tables turned a bit and they played with desperation.
"We never felt we were never going to lose it and even in the last 10 when it really swung against us, I felt we still had the game - it was just a matter of getting a bit of composure."
That ability to mix the tactics will make the others wary. The Chiefs are now genuinely unpredictable and if the weather turns nasty in these next few weeks it won't matter to them.
They can play tight, drive and kick and chase. If anyone fancies taking them on at Polynesian basketball, they have shown themselves to be pretty good at that too.
The negatives for the coaching staff to ponder were the scrum, which creaked and moaned for most of the game, and some of the casual work of the back three.
Still, Foster will be delighted that his list of things to fix is down to just two. For a while there it was an awful lot longer.
Chiefs 35 (L. Masaga, T. Lavea (2), B. Leonard tries; S. Donald 3 cons, 3 pens)
Sharks 27 (B. Skinstad, D. Carstens penalty, B. du Plessis tries; F. Steyn pen, 2 cons)
