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'I was apologising a fair bit': Chiefs hero Damian McKenzie's apology to teammate during win over Hurricanes

By Sam Smith
(Photo by Michael Bradley/Getty Images)

Chiefs star Damian McKenzie may have slotted the winning penalty goal after the full-time siren in Friday’s 26-24 win over the Hurricanes in Hamilton, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the livewire fullback.

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For the fourth match in a row, McKenzie secured the winning points for the Chiefs in the dying stages of the match by landing a 45-metre penalty four minutes into injury time to keep his side’s Super Rugby Aotearoa final hopes alive.

It comes after the 27-test All Black, who turned 26 on Tuesday, scored and converted a try in the 80th minute to beat the Blues 15-12 on March 27, scored a 45m penalty in extra-time to beat the Highlanders 26-23 on April 10 and scored a 30m penalty in the 78th minute to beat the Crusaders 26-25 last Saturday.

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This week’s continuation of McKenzie’s match-winning exploits led teammate Anton Lienert-Brown to joke that “he is a couple games off getting keys to the city”, although not all of his peers appeared overly ecstatic with McKenzie’s on-field efforts.

Speaking on Sky Sport‘s post-match coverage, former Chiefs playmaker Stephen Donald said he noticed that McKenzie had often “pushed” Chiefs pivot Bryn Gatland “out of the way” to jump in at first receiver when his side was on attack.

Like many teams, the Chiefs have adopted a dual playmaker system whereby the likes of McKenzie and Gatland can share the playmaking responsibility from fullback and first-five, respectively.

However, McKenzie revealed he had to apologise to Gatland during the match for assuming the playmaking role too often and thus invading on the latter’s responsibilities.

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“I was apologising a fair bit to Brynner [Gatland] out there,” McKenzie told Donald and former All Blacks Sevens star Karl Te Nana. “Not sure if it was my lungs… but poor old Brynner, I got in his way a few times.”

Nevertheless, McKenzie was pleased with the way in which the Chiefs had adopted the dual playmaker scheme that has seen him deployed at No 10 and No 15 this season.

He said he is enjoying his time at the franchise this year and that he has formed good partnerships with the likes of Gatland and Kaleb Trask, of which will need to remain strong heading into the competition’s final on May 8.

“It’s nice being able to chop and change, but I got caught there a couple of times in the wrong spots,” McKenzie said. “I’m just enjoying the dual role and coming late into No 10 is nice as well. Plenty to work on, but it’s exciting and I enjoy it.”

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He added: “We’re creating a good relationship from our No 10 and No 15, and with Trasky [Kaleb Trask] as well. We’ve just got to keep building that through our last couple of games.”

The win over the Hurricanes keeps the Chiefs in second place on the Super Rugby Aotearoa standings, three points shy of the league-leading Crusaders and five points ahead of the third-placed Blues.

Clayton McMillan’s side remain a good chance of making the final in a fortnight, and a Crusaders win over the Blues in Christchurch on Sunday would go some way to solidifying the Chiefs’ top-two finish.

However, regardless of the result at Orangetheory Stadium, the Chiefs will still need to get a result of some kind against the Blues in their final regular season fixture in Auckland next Saturday.

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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