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Chiefs face a Bullish challenge

Sunday 18th February 2007

The Chiefs' stand-in captain Steven Bates was pondering his team's next challenge, facing a wounded Bulls outfit in Pretoria on Saturday, after his side again fell short at the weekend.

The Chiefs, the only team in the 2007 Super 14 competition that has not yet won a match, lost another heartbreaker when they went down 21-16 to the Stormers at Newlands last Friday. That followed six-point (21-15 to the Brumbies) and seven-point (39-32 to the Hurricanes) losses in the first two weeks.

Now the team, in the absence of regular captain Jono Gibbes (who missed the South African tour through injury), face the Bulls in Pretoria this week and the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein a week later.

"You have got to try and keep your chin up," Bates said after his team's loss to the Stormers.

"To play reasonably well and perhaps let ourselves down in all three and just lose, it gets harder," a frustrated Bates said.

He knows the Bulls will be a tall order, following their loss to the Western Force last Friday.

Bates blamed his side's high error-rate as the reason for the defeat at Newlands.

"I think we were confident throughout the whole game," he added.

"We made enough breaks to win two games but we made enough mistakes to lose two games and that's probably what let us down in the end."