Chiefs rugby skipper Jono Gibbes was already talking about next season just hours after his team’s 2004 Super 12 campaign had come to a sudden halt in Canberra on Saturday night.
Both he and first-year coach Ian Foster were talking about learning how to win in the playoffs now they had finally learned how to win in the regular season.
After making the playoffs for the first time in nine years, the Chiefs lost to 2001 champions the Brumbies 17-32 in their semifinal but it was not all doom and gloom in the camp despite the inevitable disappointment of defeat.
”Just massive steps forward — that’s how I see our season,” Gibbes said. ”Just some genuine, tangible growth, which in this competition you don’t always get to see because it’s such a fickle competition.”
Gibbes said the Chiefs would not rest on their laurels, having finally lost the tag of never having made the semifinals.
”Good teams go on.”
He said he wished the Super 12 was rolling around again in another month and envied the Australian teams being able to start planning and preparations so early without other competitions apart from Test rugby in between.
It wasn’t often that a team advanced as far as they had with the sort of injury toll they had suffered but a key part of their advancement had been how they had got on with the job despite that.
New players came in and did the job in place of those that dropped out of the campaign.
”I think that was huge for us. It happened again tonight. Byron [Kelleher] got a facial injury pretty early on, Keith’s [Lowen] hammy blew out, but we just kept going and I think that was the spirit of the year really.”
Gibbes named successive wins against the odds over South African sides the Sharks and Stormers as the most treasured memories.
”Even tonight’s disappointment I don’t think will tarnish my memories of those two games this year. I think they were huge games for our squad.”
Foster said the Chiefs had some good players who were starting to believe in themselves.
”I guess the disappointing thing for me is that I know how good they can be and we didn’t play to our potential tonight but we can go away being very proud of our season, with a little bit of bitterness about this loss over the winter and bounce back next summer.”
The Chiefs recruited well this season, but the recruiting will have to go on for them to continue their progress.
They came up trumps with their two draft players — number eight Sione Lauaki and Wellington wing Lome Fa’atau — but it is unlikely the Blues will let Lauaki go again next year.
Much will depend on who else emerges with Waikato and Bay of Plenty during the NPC season and how well injured players such as Regan King, Roger Randle, Tom Willis and Loki Crichton return. — Sapa-NZPA