Jacobson's dressing-room speech after defeat fuelled Chiefs' semi-final demolition of Crusaders

Luke Jacobson’s words in a Christchurch changing room three weeks ago lit the fuse for the Chiefs’ dominant semi-final victory over the Crusaders, according to head coach Jono Gibbes, who will now take charge of his first Super Rugby Pacific grand final.

The Chiefs had lost both regular-season meetings with the reigning champions — one at FMG Stadium Waikato and the round 15 clash at One New Zealand Stadium on 22 May, where they fell 36-32. In that post-match moment, Jacobson told his teammates they would see the Crusaders again before the season was out.

“I probably just go back to an internal moment that we had in the changing shed after the Crusaders game,” Gibbes told media in Hamilton after the semi-final. “Luke Jacobson gave an outstanding message to the group there in that moment, and that message, that learning from that game served us in the last few weeks.”

The Chiefs made good on Jacobson’s promise emphatically, running in six first-half tries to book their place in a fourth consecutive final. Gibbes was careful to frame the winning margin as a consequence of the work done rather than the goal itself.

“We took that experience and used it, and we won the game that mattered against the Crusaders,” he said. “The margin of points is the byproduct of the effort that’s gone in, but the satisfaction is what we learned three weeks ago from Luke’s point.”

Gibbes elaborated on what Jacobson, a 24-Test All Black since his international debut in 2019, had identified from those two round-robin losses — the moments the Chiefs had failed to control and the knowledge that a knockout meeting with the Crusaders was likely coming.

“He just dealt with what we can take out of the two games,” Gibbes explained. “What opportunities that we had, what moments that we had, that we possibly didn’t control, and that we knew we were going to have to meet them somewhere in the finals. And that we would have the opportunity to show in a playoff game the things that we’ve learned in our hard-fought wisdom.”

The Chiefs will now face the Hurricanes in the Super Rugby Pacific grand final at Hnry Stadium in Wellington on Saturday night.