Six of the worst: They started so well, but the Ian Foster's men have seen a promising campaign turn bad
Last year the Chiefs' elevator stopped one short of the penthouse. This year, after a stellar start, the cable has been cut and they find themselves unhinged and plummeting towards the basement. It's unlikely to end in anything but a mess. How did their fortunes fall so far and so
fast?
1.) Broken bodies
Granted, blaming injuries is the fall-back position of the weak. Super rugby is played at a time of year that was not designed for contact sport and it is something you have to expect and plan for. Even so, the line outside the sick bay at Chiefs HQ has been perverse.
It began before the season started, with propping prospect Ben May ruled out long term, and has continued in varying degrees since.
James McGougan, Aled de Malmanche, Kevin O'Neill, Sitiveni Sivivatu and Mils Muliaina have all succumbed to injuries that have made them unavailable for long periods.
Nathan White, Sona Taumalolo, Hika Elliot, Craig Clarke, Tanerau Latimer, Mike Delany, Stephen Donald and Lelia Masaga have also spent more time than coach Ian Foster would have wished or expected on the treatment table.
Maybe they will have to review their pre-season programme to see if there is any correlation between the work they did (or didn't do) and the types of injuries they have been getting, but in all likelihood it comes down to sheer bad luck.
Excuses out of the way, let's move on to ...
2.) Underperforming ABs
When you are blighted by injury and forced to use inexperienced players more than you may have wished, it is vital that the experienced guys, particularly the internationals, step up.
In the case of the Chiefs, there is no way of sugar-coating the fact that their All Blacks have been disappointing, in some cases desperately so.
Starting from the back, Muliaina had the first three weeks off to recover from a long 2009. The merits of these rest and rehabilitation periods have been debated at length and, through coincidence more than anything, the Chiefs' most successful month coincided with his absence.
He had just got back into the swing of things when a broken thumb sidelined him for the season. So through planning and bad luck, the Chiefs' most decorated player has been a busted flush.
When he was on the field, which wasn't often enough, Sivivatu looked slick, but coming back from injury Masaga has flattered to deceive.
The form of Richard Kahui, or lack thereof, has been mystifying. He still makes his tackles, but the man expected to strongly challenge Conrad Smith for the All Black No 13 jersey has completely lost his mojo on attack.
Donald and Delany have never looked comfortable in each other's pockets and it now looks like the latter might have made a mistake resisting the Blues' overtures.
Donald has reversed his normal pattern of starting slowly before hitting form late in the competition.
Brendon Leonard has been decent behind a struggling pack, without ever scaling the heights that first made him an All Black.
There'll be more on Sione Lauaki later but his fellow loose forward internationals, Liam Messam and Latimer, have tried hard, but like many loosies are only truly effective behind a rock-solid tight five.
De Malmanche has been injury- plagued and Elliot's form has been so-so. If you were going to mark them pass or fail, it would not make for a pretty scorecard.
3.) The Lauaki affair(s)
If he doesn't walk like a captain, or talk like a captain, the chances are he's not a captain.
This was a Foster gamble that just didn't work. Despite all the talk of a burgeoning off-field presence, Lauaki neither had the mana nor the maturity to lead this side.
At times the Lauaki sideshow - he drinks, he punches, he drives, he crashes - started to overshadow anything the Chiefs were doing on the field. And we haven't even mentioned his spear tackle that copped a two-match ban.
Lauaki might be a soft target at the moment, but the fact is his troubles have provided a distraction that neither his teammates nor management deserved.
4.) The 10-12 axis
Much was made of the Chiefs' all-international backline, but there was always a debate over who was going to play the straight man at second five-eighth.
The All Black selectors obviously wanted to see how Donald would go at 12, probably against the wishes of the player himself and of Foster, who would have seen Callum Bruce as the ideal foil for either Donald or Delany at 10.
Bruce's form was unconvincing, however, opening the way for the Donald-Delany experiment.
There were flashes of potential, but not enough to provide the direction the Chiefs' three-quarters craved and Delany's injury prevented further development.
5.) False dawn
There's no doubt that coming home from tour unbeaten, something no Chiefs side had ever managed, created a false impression of how well the Hamilton franchise were travelling.
They met the Sharks who were about to embark on a 0-5 start to the season, the still winless Lions and a Force team as ravaged by injury as the Chiefs are now.
They were inspired for the first 20 minutes against the Reds in round four, had a chance to put the game away and failed, and their season has tailed off since.
It's one of those hypothetical questions that are essentially meaningless, but if the Chiefs had managed to land a knockout punch on the Reds during the first half, you can only wonder if that would have changed the complexion of their season, or merely delayed the inevitable?
6.) No new ideas
The knives are slowly being sharpened again for Foster, which is nothing new for the likeable coach, though he might have expected a little more leeway after the feats of last year.
Just as making excuses for injuries can be, well, lame, so is blaming the coach for all the ills of a team.
But this is professional sport and Foster can expect some extra heat in the end-of-year review.
You do wonder, however, whether there might be a touch too much Waikato in the Chiefs. Foster, assistants Craig Stevenson and Keith Robinson, and skills coach Scott McLeod are all steeped in the Waikato way - would some outside eyes benefit the side?
Opponents this year have said they found the Chiefs predictable, that they knew what their approach was going to be. That is a criticism that could be levelled at several sides, but after a down year, it should be the time to inject some new perspectives into the staff.
