Brumbies knocked out of Super Rugby finals

The top-ranked Chiefs will play 11-time champions the Crusaders in an all-New Zealand final in the Super Rugby Pacific after beating the ACT Brumbies 19-6 on Saturday.

All the points in the semi-final had come from penalty goals, four to Damian McKenzie for the Chiefs and two by Noah Lolesio for the Brumbies, until the veteran All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick scored the only try in the 77th minute.

Until then, the Brumbies' defence had held on magnificently against steadily increasing pressure from the Chiefs. The Brumbies still were in the match when they trailed 9-6 after 57 minutes, and at 12-6 when McKenzie struck a magnificent goal from halfway.

The decisive moment came when the Chiefs' replacement flyhalf Josh Ioane fielded a short clearing kick by the Brumbies and McKenzie sliced through a rare gap in the defence. He passed wide to winger Shaun Stevenson and when play came back to the goalline, Retallick was there to pick the ball up and score.

"I feel like we've won in every way possible this season and that was just a helluva grind against a good Brumbies team," Chiefs captain Brad Weber said. "It took 77 minutes and that's when your big-time players step up.

"Damian through the middle and then Guzzler (Retallick) does what he does best. He's still going at the 80th minute just as he is in the first minute. He's got a helluva engine on him."

The match began in heavy rain and continued on a wet field which dictated the style of play. It was in total contrast to the first semi-final in Christchurch on Friday, when the Crusaders beat the Blues 52-15.

The two sides booted the ball more than usual on Saturday, with 30 kicks in play in the first 15 minutes alone. As the rain stopped, both sides carried and recycled the ball continually and with great precision in the conditions, 18 minutes elapsing before the first handling error occurred.

Both defences were tested throughout the 80 minutes and the fact that the only try of the match didn't come until almost fulltime showed just how accurate and determined they were.

There were a few moments late in the second half that turned the match in the Chiefs' favour. Trailing 9-6, the Brumbies decided to kick for touch from a penalty in the 64th minute and backrower Pita Gus Sowakula produced a brilliant play to disrupt the Brumbies' lineout drive.

Had they kicked for goal from close range, the Brumbies might have tied the scores and made the last 15 minutes more tense for the Chiefs. But the home side began to gain momentum from that incident and it led to Retallick's late try.

"We knew it was going to be a helluva of a wrestle. We said we were going to come over here and throw everything at it and we did," Brumbies captain Nic White said.

"They held on, we held on and it was always going to come down to one moment.

"They're a very good side but we did everything we could out there."

The Chiefs now host the Crusaders in Hamilton next Saturday. They last won the Super Rugby title when they beat the Brumbies at the same venue in 2013.

The Crusaders have won the last six titles in various formats and the final between the two best teams after the regular season is a promoter's dream.

"I couldn't ask for anything more than (a home final) and I'm stoked that it's against the Crusaders too," Weber said. "They've been the benchmark for about 90 percent of my career and if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best."

The Chiefs have set up a showdown with the Crusaders for the Super Rugby Pacific title after charging home late to beat the Brumbies in an epic semifinal in Hamilton on Saturday night.

Brodie Retallick powered his way over the line in the 78th minute for the only try of a massively tense 19-6 encounter at a wet FMG Stadium Waikato.

The veteran All Blacks lock finished off a break from Damian McKenzie just prior to bring the 18,500 crowd to their feet, after they had spent the entire contest on the edge of their seats.

In a complete contrast to the massively lopsided semifinal from the night before, this was as intense as it gets, real semifinal footy at its best, where the margins for error were tight and neither side was budging an inch.

Tensions were clearly boiling, with what was on the line, feisty Brumbies captain and halfback Nic White not only continued his running verbal battle with referee Nic Berry from the week before, but went about fighting well above his weight class in taking on Retallick and Tupou Vaa'i.

On a greasy surface, with rain falling throughout the first half, the kicking battle was always going to be key, and while there were a few big duels, the ball was still in play plenty, the game going at hectic pace at times.

So good were the teams in the tricky conditions, in fact, that the first scrum did not pack down till 18 minutes in. When they did lock in, the hosts enjoyed a distinct advantage, having also put the Brumbies' lineout under huge pressure early, winning a couple against the throw.

Turning with a slender 6-3 halftime advantage, the Chiefs came up trumps with a couple of crunch turnover penalties early in the second stanza, while McKenzie and Noah Lolesio – on after Jack Debreczeni left the park with a nasty head knock in the 31st minute – again trading three-pointers prior to the hour-mark.

But the home side slowly squeezed their opponents when it really counted.

After seeing off the Brumbies' dangerous rolling maul with quarter of an hour to play, the Chiefs soon then also held the Canberrans up in midfield, and it was from that resulting scrum that McKenzie kicked a crucial 72nd minute long-range penalty from on halfway.

Lolesio banged the restart out on the full, and from there the Chiefs duly went on to seal the deal, having earlier on struggled to kick clear against a gallant Brumbies defence which came up trumps in a massive way in the final few minutes of the first spell.

After Emoni Narawa couldn't hold on to an in-ball, the Chiefs put on an absolutely massive scrum shunt, but despite a string of penalties on the Brumbies' line, they just couldn't find their way over. Samisoni Taukei'aho was held up then Tom Wright gifted them another shot when his dropout found Narawa, only for Luke Jacobson to knock on when charging hard off the back of another scrum.

But in the end, the top seeds were good enough, extending the Aussies' record in playoff matches in New Zealand to a miserable 0-16.