The Hurricanes have laid down a challenge to their semifinal opponents by stating that they have the belief and the ability to win the 2009 Super 14.
Colin Cooper's Hurricanes face a rematch of a round robin match when they meet with the Chiefs in the first semifinal at Hamilton's Waikato Stadium on Friday.
Two weeks ago the Chiefs beat the Hurricanes 16-8 in the regular season. The Hurricanes went into the match as the Super 14 table leaders and surrendered the top spot to the Chiefs.
The Hurricanes paid the price for a drop-off in intensity in the second half of their recent round-robin loss to the Chiefs but coach Cooper was confident that wouldn't be repeated on Friday night.
While the Chiefs will have home advantage the Hurricanes will face a weakened Chiefs outfit, with prop Ben May and halfback Brendon Leonard both forced out with injury.
In addition All Black centre Richard Kahui is also a highly doubtful starter with a bruised calf but even before the injuries were confirmed, Cooper was upbeat about his side's chances this weekend.
"Really confident now, because we have got a core around Rodney (So'oialo), we've got core people right through from Andrew Hore at hooker to Cory Jane at fullback," Cooper said of his side's chances.
"We're going to go in there all guns blazing." he told Yahoo!Xtra.
"They'll be hard to knock over in the semi-finals because we're just gaining a lot more confidence.
"Hopefully we get momentum now and go back to how we know we can play."
The Hurricanes found their attack that went missing in the Chiefs match against the Reds on the weekend and once the rugby match had been secured with a bonus point Cooper emptied his bench.
It allowed the Reds to come back at them and they picked up a bonus point.
Despite the late points, Cooper said he was in awe of some aspects of the Canes' win.
"It was win and live or lose and die, so we hammered that with the boys," he said.
"That's how important this game was to us.
"It's the toughest competition in the world, as you saw there were seven teams going for four positions, so I'm proud of them, I'm proud of our guys, because it took a lot of guts, there was a lot of blood spilt out there.
"I felt the pressure as coach all week and the concern for me was that these guys sometimes think it's just going to happen, but you've got to do the work, particularly the (bad) work in the contact area.
"That's why I was so proud of them because that's where I think we won the game."
Over in South Africa the Bulls will host the Crusaders for the second Semi final as they did in 2007 when the Bulls went on to win the Super 14.
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