Chiefs need to play smarter: Messam

Chiefs captain Liam Messam admits his side are probably coming under closer scrutiny from referees following an ill-disciplined start to the Super Rugby season.

Referees have dished out six yellow cards and one red to the Chiefs, who are conceding an average 13 penalties a game – the worst in the competition.

So far this season Matt Symons, James Lowe (twice), Damian McKenzie, Mike Fitzgerald and Ben Tameifuna have been sent to the sin bin, while hooker Hika Elliot was shown a straight red card in the loss to the Sharks.

Fitzgerald and Tameifuna were yellow carded for the team’s repeated infringement trying to defend the Cheetahs’ driving maul in the first half of last weekend’s 37-27 win when the penalty count against the two-time champions was 12-2 at halftime.

“Obviously at the weekend Craig (Joubert) had a different interpretation to what we thought the rules were,” Messam said ahead of the derby clash with the Blues on Saturday.

“We’ll just have to adapt to whatever the ref says (this weekend).”

While conceding his side needs to reduce the number of penalties they are giving away, Messam makes no apology for testing the limits.

“The refs probably will be talking about us,” he said.

“There are some things on the footy field that we try to do that are maybe a bit different to other teams.

“We know that we try to push the boundaries but we’ve got to be a little bit smarter in what we do and hopefully our discipline will be better this week.”

Messam felt the struggling Blues could see the driving maul as a good attacking weapon after seeing the South African teams’ success against the two-time champions over the past few weeks.

But the All Blacks loose forward felt his side would be ready to head off the challenge.

“It’s good for us to go through the last two weeks because now we have plans,” Messam said.

He also said the Blues’ woeful campaign to date would mean little in the red-hot atmosphere of a derby clash.

“It’s a Blues-Chiefs game so it doesn’t matter what your record is, it’s always a tough, physical encounter.”

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