Casualty list grows for Chiefs

When the Chiefs depart for Cape Town on Sunday morning, captain Sam Cane won’t be joining them.

Cane has been ruled out of his side’s two-game tour of South Africa after suffering an abdominal strain which kept him out of Friday night’s loss to the Jaguares.

Head coach Colin Cooper said that Cane won’t recover in time to tour.

“He’s still got niggles with his ab,” Cooper told Newstalk ZB. “And Lachie Boshier [appendicitis] won’t come either. The rest of the boys got through the game pretty well.”

The Chiefs will take a 29-man squad on their trip.

Cane would have only been available for the first leg of the tour if he was healthy, as he would join Brodie Retallick, Nathan Harris, Anton Lienert-Brown and Damian McKenzie for a compulsory All Blacks camp on May 20th.

The Chiefs’ defeat at the hands of the Jaguares kept their opponents’ four-game Australasian tour record perfect after previously dispatching the Brumbies, Rebels and Blues.

“They certainly shut us down defensively and their lineout work was good,” said Cooper. “They’re an international team, that’s probably what [fans are] not realising. That’s the Argentinian side out there. We certainly didn’t take them lightly.”

“We had a number of opportunities — a disallowed try by Charlie [Ngatai] was a big moment, then an attacking scrum when the ball popped out after we thought we had dominance.”

Cooper said discipline proved costly, as the Chiefs lost both Michael Allardice and Liam Messam to yellow cards as well as surrendering a penalty try.

“The Jaguares player drove downwards and Liam drove with him, so the yellow card-penalty try was a hard call I thought.

“But our discipline has to be better. There were changes in our team but we were good enough. We could’ve, and should’ve, won the game.”

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