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'Pretty special': captains eye Super Rugby glory in clash of top seeds / Photo: Grant Down - AFP
'Pretty special': captains eye Super Rugby glory in clash of top seeds
Waikato Chiefs captain Tupou Vaa'i said Friday the Super Rugby final against the Wellington Hurricanes on Saturday is "the game that everyone wanted to see".
Both the Chiefs and the hometown Hurricanes are looking to end decade-long waits for a Super Rugby title.
The Hurricanes won their only title in 2016, a 20-3 win over the Lions, while the Chiefs haven't won since back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013, under new All Blacks coach Dave Rennie.
The final pits the season's top two seeds against one another, with their only previous encounter this season edged by the Chiefs 22-17 in an extra-time thriller.
Vaa'i said the encounter would be a "battle".
"It's probably the game that everyone wanted to see and it's going to be a game that all the supporters will find exciting."
Wellington's stadium sold out in just 15 minutes, and the game is expected to be played in heavy rain and strong winds gusting to more than 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour.
In similar conditions two weeks ago the Hurricanes put 66 points past the ACT Brumbies in the elimination final.
Chiefs coach Jono Gibbes said he was looking forward to a big crowd and hoped his side's fans had snapped up tickets.
"It sold out pretty quick," Gibbes said.
"I'm hoping that a lot of those IP addresses were based out of Waikato, so we'll see what we get tomorrow."
Hurricanes co-captain Jordie Barrett said it was "pretty special" to be in the final, but warned against his team thinking they'd won it already.
"We've just got ourselves here," Barrett said. "It's only an opportunity, and the Chiefs will probably be saying the same thing.
"We've been sitting here this time of the year and doing reviews after seasons that have just fallen short, so it's satisfying to get an opportunity for one more week.
"The team will hopefully relish that, and both teams are going to be right up for it."
Fellow co-captain Du'Plessis Kirifi joked he had to "go deep into the archives" to remember the Hurricanes' previous clash with the Chiefs, but said his team had learned plenty from it.
"I think that game was a great example of how tiny moments can really matter in the grand scheme of things," Kirifi said.
"If you look at the rest of our season, we put ourselves in positions to win games by a lot more points. That game in particular, you could see the effect that one or two decisions or one or two moments had on the overall outcome."
M.Anderson--SMC
