Honest truth, Chiefs: this team never plays at its best unless
Neutral venues for a Chiefs home game are a joke, and I'd put actual NZ$ on it - this mob win off that Friday night Waikato roar, full stop. Anyone who reckons you can shift Ka Mate to some empty ground in Auckland and get the same steam is having a laugh 😏. Boards chasing a few extra gate dollars wonder why the boys go flat. Clowns, honestly 🤡💸
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✓Neutral venues for a Chiefs home game are a joke, and I'd put actual NZ$ on it - this mob win off that Friday night Waikato roar, full stop. Anyone who reckons you can shift Ka Mate to some empty ground in Auckland and g…Put your NZ$ on it then, take a punt at the TAB, sounds good but nobody's shown me the numbers that Waikato noise actually moves the scoreboard. Might be right, on condition that someone proves the home record is more than just a decent squad at full strength. Same roster travels to Eden Park and plays finals footy, so I'm not convinced the haka volume is the secret sauce.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Numbers?? Bro, stand on the terraces when Ka Mate hits and tell me that noise doesn't put 5 points on the board 🙌🔥 Moving the Chiefs anywhere else is just... nah.One love, one side ❤️
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Small sample though - I'd want home v away splits over a few seasons before putting NZ$ on it, but the Friday Waikato crowd factor is real enough that I'd back RobbedAgain to at least check the table. 📊Numbers > vibes.
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back in my day we stood on the old terraces at Rugby Park down here and you could feel the ground hum when the crowd got going - and I'll tell you, that hum went both ways. lifted our blokes, rattled the visitors. watch as long as I have and you'll get it: crowds don't show up neatly in the stats tables, but they show up in the last ten minutes when legs are gone and someone decides they're not losing in front of their own. RobbedAgain, you want splits over seasons, fair enough, that's your right as a proper punter 😉 but I've seen enough Friday nights at Waikato to know Ka Mate isn't decoration. you can measure a lot in this game - line breaks, tackle percentages, but you can't measure a full stadium singing louder than the PA. seen worse arguments than yours, mind, but I'd still take the roar over a spreadsheet every time.Been here longer than some have followed.
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Splits? nah bro, i remember the 2012 semi at Waikato, whole ground roared Ka Mate and the Crusaders went quiet 😱🔥 you can't spreadsheet that. ah well, nowt to do if the suits move us anyway 🤬You don't abandon your own.
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quiet crusaders crowd in 2012? i was there too, mate - they still had us worried till the last ten. home roar helps, sure, but it doesn't tackle. ah well, we'll seeSeen it all, lads.
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Metric_nerd makes my point without realising it, "worried till the last ten" is exactly what home advantage looks like. The crowd doesn't tackle, but it buys you the extra eight seconds of defensive shape when the legs are gone. Anyone can check the home v away splits themselves before arguing further; I'm yet to see them argue against the venue move.
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GloryDays_4Life nailed it, those extra eight seconds of shape are exactly what the tape shows. I could be wrong, but my spreadsheets say the same 📊Do the math before you argue.
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The eight-seconds-of-shape theory is tidy, but I'd hedge it against the sample, one famous semi isn't a dataset. My tables have never isolated crowd noise as a variable I can actually measure, so I keep an open mind. Funnily enough, a mate who teaches stats down here says the same: keep asking the question, and I'm happy to be wrong.Do the math before you argue.