CAPE TOWN – Dave Rennie won’t be taking any confidence from the 60-21 quarter-final beating they gave the Stormers last year as the Chiefs coach believes “the past counts for little”.
The Chiefs, who arrived in Cape Town late on Sunday night, will square off with Robbie Fleck’s Stormers in their second consecutive Super Rugby quarter-final at Newlands on Saturday (5pm kickoff).
And after the teams’ meeting in round eight earlier this season, when the Cape side secured a convincing 34-26 revenge win over the Kiwis, Rennie is expecting another “massive occasion” at the same venue this weekend.
“We know it’s going to be a massive occasion again, just like it was the last time,” Rennie said at a city hotel on Tuesday.
“That last game (round eight) was a hell of a game of footy. We made a couple of errors and got punished. We know we need to look after the ball, they’ve got a hell of a lot of firepower at the back and they’ve got a big pack.
“That’s what we expect from a lot of the African sides. Hopefully, we can get a bit of pill and put some pressure on them this week.
“What happened in the past counts for little. Last year they hadn’t played a Kiwi side, and this year they’ve played five Kiwis and won both their clashes at home. So, they’re a different beast this year.”
That different “beast” also has a different skipper this time around in Springbok loose forward Siya Kolisi, and Chiefs skipper Sam Cane said that the New Zealand outfit were wary of the Stormers’ “Kiwi” loose forward.
“He’s a real leader in their pack and he’s a South African loose forward that plays a lot more like a Kiwi. He’s got good footwork, a great skill-set and he is very physical too,” Cane said.
Other than keeping a close watch on captain Kolisi and the Stormers’ “firepower at the back”, the Chiefs will also be out to make sure that their own boys generate quick ball, according to Rennie.
“Everyone knows that our game revolves around lightning-quick ball. Because of that, teams are going to work really hard to slow our ball down. Our ball-carriers and supporting players need to do a good job to ensure we get quick ball. And hopefully (referee) Jaco Peyper will play his part in that respect too,” he said.
And although Rennie was sure that the Stormers would play their part in a tough battle at the weekend, he was confident that his team could “turn up” on Saturday.
“We only lost two games this season and finished sixth, I’m not sure how that works out. We haven’t put teams away like we would have liked, but what we have done is we’ve fronted in the big ones,” he said.
“The Hurricanes have smashed teams, but we beat them twice. We’ve shown that we have the ability to turn up when the pressure is on, and we’ll have to do that this week.”