Hamilton - The Chiefs will change their approach to the breakdown after "suspicious" referees made decisions that saw them penalised heavily in 2013.
Talking to Stuff.co.nz website, Chiefs assistant coach Andrew Strawbridge said that despite his team winning the competition this season, he felt his team had been unfairly targeted by referees at ruck-time.
Strawbridge said some of the rules were "pretty dodgy, very grey" and so the Chiefs had forced the referees to explain their interpretations of the rules.
"In the end if someone is giving penalties against you, you've got to adjust," he said.
Strawbridge said he felt that referees targeted teams that won the competition and said his team needed to adjust to the large amount of penalties that they conceded as a result.
"The referees are a suspicious bunch and they think if you win, you are probably doing something underhanded or untoward, and they double-check everything you do and we came under the microscope because of that."
The coach said that the tackle was the area of the game that they looked at pretty closely last year - an area they emphasised, and in which aimed to make a lot of adjustments for the 2014 season.
Talking to Stuff.co.nz website, Chiefs assistant coach Andrew Strawbridge said that despite his team winning the competition this season, he felt his team had been unfairly targeted by referees at ruck-time.
Strawbridge said some of the rules were "pretty dodgy, very grey" and so the Chiefs had forced the referees to explain their interpretations of the rules.
"In the end if someone is giving penalties against you, you've got to adjust," he said.
Strawbridge said he felt that referees targeted teams that won the competition and said his team needed to adjust to the large amount of penalties that they conceded as a result.
"The referees are a suspicious bunch and they think if you win, you are probably doing something underhanded or untoward, and they double-check everything you do and we came under the microscope because of that."
The coach said that the tackle was the area of the game that they looked at pretty closely last year - an area they emphasised, and in which aimed to make a lot of adjustments for the 2014 season.