No Cane for Chiefs

Editor

The Chiefs will be without in-form openside flanker Sam Cane for their final match of the regular-season, at home to the Hurricanes next Saturday.

With a play-off spot secured thanks to victory over the Reds, the outfit from Waikato are now pushing for a home game in the forthcoming qualifier round.

But they will be without All Black Cane due to this season's rest policy employed by New Zealand, with the dynamic back-row forward due another weekend off.

"We'll probably give Sam a rest this week and freshen him up prior to the quarterfinals because he's played a fair bit of footy," Chiefs head coach Dave Rennie told stuff.co.nz ahead of their important fixture in New Plymouth.

"He missed the Brumbies game earlier in the year and our byes were pretty good – they worked out well with quite nice spacing to enable him to freshen up – so he's been pretty good.

"But we're conscious of the fact that he's due a rest, we've got a big quarter-final game somewhere the following week and it would be nice to freshen him up for that."