Super Rugby Pacific's perfect storm: Chiefs v Hurricanes was destined for failure

Saturday night’s Chiefs versus Hurricanes fixture in Hamilton should have been reason to get the blood pumping. Instead, we got Super Rugby Pacific’s perfect storm.

Here we had the home team, sitting top of the table and chasing the vital No 1 seeding, coming off their first loss of the season, but with their ranks to be loaded back up.

We had the visitors, in a tight battle to secure a home quarterfinal, having just posted their highest score in six years, looking for revenge on a team they had been blown away by in the second half on home turf five weeks ago.

A local derby with the enticing prospect of big mate-on-mate matchups – Ardie Savea smashing into All Blacks captain Sam Cane and fellow hard-edged loosie Luke Jacobson, Jordie Barrett colliding in midfield with Anton Lienert-Brown, and Tyrel Lomax packing down against Aidan Ross.

But, no, how could you be so foolish? This is only the southern hemisphere’s premier domestic rugby competition, after all, and All Blacks need their beauty sleep.

Forget the torrential rain and wild westerlies for a minute – we can’t have covered stadiums everywhere – because that was just the icing on this unappetising cake which was cooked up two days prior.

Hurricanes coach Holland, on team naming day Thursday, gave the proverbial middle finger to suggestions the competition was devalued by him opting to leave out Savea, Barrett and Lomax – not only three All Blacks, but three of the current best ones, for such a contest.

You can see his predicament. He must bow to the rest wishes of Ian Foster and New Zealand Rugby in order to have the top players firing for the World Cup. And with such a tough draw to finish the season, he essentially sacrificed this game against the ladder leaders instead of last weekend’s stroll against Moana Pasifika.

Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan similarly chose a bulk resting option – though in non-derby games where his side were firmer favourites – and indeed his side paid the price last weekend against the Reds.

But, for a sport which already has so shortage of fan engagement issues, largely due to an over-complicated law book, every effort needs to be made to sell the game, in a modern-day market when they are so many options competing for consumers’ attention.

Yes, the resting is magnified in World Cup year, but it is also an annual occurrence, and you can’t imagine Scott Robertson – the man who has already voiced his desire to look at picking players from offshore – to be veering off the track when he takes over next year.

So, credit to Josh Moorby and Brayden Iose for their illuminating long-range tries, and credit to the 16,500 who indeed bought tickets for this one, but something has to be done before we have this sort of shambles again.

The fans who fork out their hard-earned dollars can’t be treated with such contempt. They must be lured back time and again.

There is a multitude of options, but perhaps the best would simply be to only allow teams to rest one All Black at a time. Sure, it would spread the pain further across the regular season, but it would at least guard against the debacle of punters going to the footy and missing out on seeing a host of star players.

All the more laughable was that all week Hamiltonians were driving past a billboard near the ground which featured Barrett as the Hurricanes pin-up.

The economic principle – caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) – is the notion that fans always take a risk when purchasing tickets, be it the threat of awful weather, or a game which gets littered with errors.

They really should not also be forced to second-guess whether they will be seeing the best (fit) players on the park.