‘We’ve got to keep our feet grounded’: Chiefs coach tempers big win over Crusaders

Clayton McMillan wasted little time tempering the magnitude of his team’s season-opening triumph over the reigning champion Crusaders.

Sure, the Chiefs’ coach was wrapped to roll into Christchurch and hand them their equal-worst defeat (21 points) since 2017, but hold off on the bold and premature statements.

“We’ve been around here long enough to know we didn’t get them at their best today, and they will hurt and come back strong,” McMillan said after the hefty 31-10 win.

“We’ve got to keep our feet grounded. It was a good outcome, but there’s still plenty of growth left in our game. It was far from perfect.”

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He was speaking shortly after his team bagged maximum competition points from their resounding triumph on Friday night, when the Hamilton-based side rattled off 31 unanswered points and became the first team to beat the Crusaders in round one of a season since the 2016 Chiefs.

McMillan didn’t get carried away in the coaching box when Ben O’Keeffe blew full time on the match, and the same goes for when he fronted media a little later.

But he did admit how satisfying it was to start the competition by taking points from a team which is almost certain to bounce back and feature at the pointy end of the season.

“It’s a fairly arduous and unforgiving competition, but it’s helpful to just have your nose in front the whole way along, you don’t want to be getting to that back end of the competition and counting your points and worrying about other teams having to do some favours for you.

“I know we’re a long, long, long way away from having to worry about that kind of stuff, but that’s the nicest thing, to come down here and take some points away from a team you don’t often get them against.”

McMillan also delivered encouraging news regarding All Blacks midfielder Anton Lienert-Brown, who hobbled off with an ankle injury in the second half.

Having rolled it in the first half and played on, before taking another knock in the second half and being replaced, McMillan labelled it “nothing serious”.

The same goes for wing Etene Nanai-Seturo, scratched after pulling up lame with a hamstring injury during their captain’s run on Thursday.

The news isn’t so encouraging for Crusaders No 8 Cullen Grace. Having left the match after eight minutes with a shoulder injury, he was scheduled to have an x-ray post match.

Crusaders coach Scott Robertson didn’t sound optimistic he’d receive good news, not when it appeared to be a repeat of the injury that ended his 2022 season.

Pile that on top of the heavy loss to start the season and Robertson’s final season as Crusaders coach couldn’t have got off to a much worse start.

“It stings all right. It hurts. First thing you do is look at yourself as coaches. What can we do better?” Robertson said.

“They were good, and we weren’t where we needed to be. We actually trained really well this week. We thought we had a really good mindset. But our executions and our structures, we’re going to have to look at ourselves.”

That includes the team’s kicking game after they came off second best in that department, and their inability to put the Chiefs under pressure during the final hour, a period riddled with them firing blanks.

“A lot of our players will be better for that game, I feel. A lot of them haven’t had much [game time] and their combinations will be better, that’s the positive you can look at,” Robertson said.

“We’ve learnt every season is different. Everything comes along timely if you make the most of it. Still hurts, still stings, but there’s a lot of experience in the group, the boys in there will know exactly what to say and get this week right. We’re just going to have to.”