Rennie full of praise for Crusaders

Editor

Chiefs head coach Dave Rennie hailed the Crusaders' performance after they claimed a 27-13 win over his team in their semi-final on Saturday.

The Crusaders delivered a superb defensive effort to keep the Chiefs at bay and eventually outscored the men from Hamilton four tries to one.

And Rennie, who now leaves the Chiefs to coach Glasgow Warriors, feels the seven-time champions were deserved winners.

"I think they won the key moments, didn't they? We probably got off to a bit of a slow start but in the last 25 minutes of the first half we had a lot of momentum, we created a lot of opportunities," he told Stuff.

"But geez, they scrambled well."

The Chiefs had a bulk of the possession in the first half but the Crusaders' superb defensive effort meant they held a slender 10-6 lead at half-time and the visitors had to wait until late in the second half for their only try, scored by Brodie Retallick.

"It was almost the reverse of the the 2012-13 [semifinals the Chiefs won against Crusaders], when we didn't have much ball in those games but we defended really well and then we scored off opportunities," said Rennie.

"That's what they did tonight. I thought it was a really courageous performance from them."

There was controversy in the first half when the TMO disallowed a Tim Nanai-Williams try for a knock-on after referee Glen Jackson had initially awarded the score.

Although Chiefs co-captain Aaron Cruden was unhappy with the decision, Rennie had no issues with it.

"The TMO has got more angles than we can see, so we've just got to take it on the chin," he said.

"There was obviously a bit of talk about [referee] Jacko – a former Chief. To be honest, that makes us nervous too. I thought the officials were pretty good."