Coach Dave Rennie says that even though his Chiefs lost to the Crusaders at home in Hamilton their play-off hopes are in their control as they only need one more point from their final Super Rugby match.

The Chiefs lost 21-28 to seven time Super Rugby champions the Crusaders on Friday but have a match in Wellington against the Hurricanes to come.

Had the Chiefs drawn against the Crusaders they would have picked up two points in the standings instead of the one they got for finishing within seven points. The extra point would have given them a home play off.

Rennie said that having been down 6-20 after the first quarter of the match his team had put in a fine effort to get back into the match.

"We will learn from this," Rennie told Sportal after the loss.

"We played a lot of the game without the ball, we lacked accuracy and finesse," he said.

Rennie said that the absence of his co-captain Craig Clarke due to illness was one of the reasons their line out struggled as he was an integral part of their line out game.

"They (the Crusaders) got us under the hammer, they got the ball and were able to score points. "

"There were some positives out of it but we are going to need to be better," he said.

Captain Liam Messam said that the match against the Crusaders was intense.

"We will learn from the pressure they put on us. "

"It wasn't our best game of the year but we had to fight our way back to get into it and it was good for the young guys in the side to experience that sort of intensity," he said.