Sloppy Tahs crash to Crusaders as Kiwis open new stadium with a bang

The Waratahs were made to pay for shoddy discipline and turnovers galore as the Crusaders celebrated the opening night at their new stadium in Christchurch with a dominant 35-20 win.

After losing to the Force and the Reds in the last two weeks, and the Brumbies earlier in the year, the Crusaders were staring down the barrel of losing to all Australian sides in a season for the first time.

But that was never seriously on the cards on a boisterous opening night of Super Round in which the home team lifted for the grand opening of One New Zealand Stadium, and the Tahs contrastingly turned in a mostly forgettable night.

In an ill-disciplined effort, the Waratahs lost two men to yellow cards on either side of half-time and conceded 13 penalties, but that was far from their only area of downfall. Unforced turnovers – often in the Crusaders’ quarter – and a dysfunctional lineout operating at 64 per cent also left the Waratahs unable to hold the ball for any length of meaningful time, let alone build the pressure needed to score.

On the flipside, the Crusaders shook off some recent struggles and were ruthless on turnover ball. In a city that has broken the spirit of many NSW players, the Crusaders weren’t perfect either. However, they were slick when it mattered, and a joyous home crowd of 25,237 soaked up the occasion.

Feasting on the possession and territory gifted to them by NSW, winger Dallas McLeod scored a pair of tries and hybrid wing-flanker Leicester Fainga’anuku also crossed in an impressive game in the forwards.

The Tahs turned the ball over 13 times, and eight of them came via Crusader steals. The Kiwis also frequently turned the ball over – 14 times – but the Waratahs’ attack didn’t have the same success on counter, and their multi-phase attack was largely repelled.

With finals hopes now teetering in the balance, Waratahs coach Dan McKellar opted to stay positive post-game, saying he was proud of the team’s effort.

“We came over here and we wanted to show plenty of fight, it’s a special occasion to be involved in and we knew that it was going to be a game that would be required to be played at Test-match intensity and I thought we did that for large parts at the end of the day,” McKellar said.

“Discipline and set-piece is what hurt us. You’re going to get penalised in rugby but a couple of key penalties that really hurt us just before half-time and obviously after half-time which led to another yellow card.

“I’m really proud of their fight and their effort, but they did some really good things in attack. I thought our defence for large periods was outstanding, but just key penalties that led to cards and set-piece in particular in the first half was our downfall.”

McKellar said the continued problem of the Waratahs turning over the ball wasn’t following any particular patterns and they would have to work harder at training in ball retention.

Sitting in seventh with five games to go, the Tahs’ hopes of playing in the finals hang in the balance. If the sixth-placed Reds beat the Blues on Saturday, NSW will be six points adrift of the top six and they play only two games of the remaining five at home, against the Brumbies and the Force. They also have trips to Dunedin, Fiji and Perth.

McKellar said he believed the Tahs could still get a roll on in the run home but will need “34 or 35” points to squeeze in, meaning they’d need to win at least three of the five. In positive news, McKellar said Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii would return from a hamstring injury next week against the Force at Allianz Stadium.

Crusaders captain David Havili said a victory on opening night at the new stadium was very special.

“It was amazing eh? Genuinely lost for words as the bus was coming in and just to see the people, our city, just vibing and so vibrant coming through, and then coming into the stadium it was just amazing. I was pretty lost for words,” Havili said.

“It was pretty emotional. What this city has been through, to have something like this now is amazing.”

In a nice touch, the game began with a haka from the home side and the Tahs’ former Crusaders Pete Samu and Ioane Moananu both performed in response.

Havili said it showed the quality of both men, and Waratahs captain Matt Philip also approved.

“I was really proud of them to do that. It was a special feeling. You could probably feel the buzz and the energy from in the crowd there. So, yeah, really cool to see them do that,” he said.

The Tahs led 6-0 early but the home side posted the first try in the new stadium when a strong lineout drive led to a fractured Tahs line, and good hands all the way to the right wing found space for winger Dallas McLeod to score in the corner.

The Waratahs’ set-pieces looked immediately under pressure and they struggled to maintain either the lineout or the scrum as a steady platform. Simmering tension exploded with a fracas, with Tahs hot head Miles Amatosero was yellow carded after one flare-up.

The Tahs turned to the air to get back in the game, and it worked. After two effective box kicks and two nice crosskicks by Jack Debreczeni, Sid Harvey scored.

Ill-discipline cost the Tahs a half-time lead, however. A penalty in their own half was turned into a five-metre lineout, and the Waratahs pack was steamrolled for a Codie Taylor try.

The pattern continued after oranges.

More ill-discipline and mistakes saw the Crusaders set up camp on the Tahs line, and after reserve hooker Moananu was sin-binned for offside, the home side powered over for a close-range try to Fainga’anuku.

The Tahs’ struggles to hold onto the ball in attack also continued, and after Max Jorgensen knocked the ball on 25 metres out, the Crusaders counted attacked to the right and McLeod finished a superb try.

A yellow card to David Havili for a high shot on Jorgensen reduced the Kiwis to 14 men soon after, but the Tahs also lost their star fullback for a HIA.

The injection of Teddy Wilson provided some threat near the ruck, and after several botched attacking raids in the red zone, Wilson finally scored a try with a neat dart.

That brought the score to 28-20 with 15 minutes left, and the Tahs back into the contest. But the Crusaders pulled out another slick try to winger Macca Springer and that was enough to end the contest.

No Aussie team has beaten every Kiwi side in a Super season. The Brumbies can do it on Saturday

The Brumbies will lean on tough lessons learnt from recent wins in New Zealand when they attempt to complete an unprecedented “Kiwi sweep” with victory over the Hurricanes in Christchurch on Saturday.

After beating four of the five New Zealand sides so far this year, the Brumbies can make history if they beat the Canes and make it a full house of trans-Tasman wins in a single season.

The Reds are the only side that has done something similar, winning four from four against Kiwi rivals in 2013. But they didn’t play all five New Zealand teams due to the conference system in place at the time, and ultimately lost to the Crusaders in the play-offs.

Even the four Australian teams that won Super titles (Brumbies 2001 and 2004, Reds 2011 and Waratahs 2014) all dropped at least one regular season game to a New Zealand team.

But in a slightly off-kilter season in which the Brumbies have uncharacteristically lost several games at home, the ACT men have been consistently outstanding against Kiwi teams, home and away.

The Brumbies broke a 26-year drought and beat the Crusaders in round two in Christchurch and downed the Highlanders in Dunedin as well in round nine. Both wins contained key leasons for the Brumbies in trying to defeat the in-form Canes.

The Brumbies, like all teams in Super Round, could not train on One NZ Stadium on Friday and will only experience the venue when they run out on Saturday afternoon, in front of a sold-out crowd of 25,000. But coach Steve Larkham said the players had pseudo-acclimatised two weeks ago after beating the Highlanders at their roofed home ground in Dunedin, Forsyth Barr Stadium.

“It’ll be a great atmosphere inside the stadium,” Larkham said. “The stands are quite vertical, so all of that noise will resonate down onto the field, and it’ll just create a really good atmosphere for the players, something that we haven’t seen in Super Rugby for a while.

“We felt that in Dunedin as well. It wasn’t at capacity in Dunedin, but during the warm-up, even when the crowd wasn’t fully in the stadium, it was really hard to hear. And then the boys spoke about it after the game as well, in terms of that communication factor.

“So we’ve spoken about that this week in terms of some of our calls ... being more physical calls on the field, to make sure that the players can identify the space and identify the options.”

The win over the Crusaders was at a different venue in Christchurch, Apollo Projects Stadium, but the Brumbies have stuck to a similar schedule and are staying in the same hotel. They did their captain’s run in a public park across the road on Friday, in front of curious onlookers. One car passed by, and mistaking them for NSW, the passengers, preaching to the converted, yelled out, “Waratahs suck”.

But the substance of the Brumbies’ win over the Crusaders is the lesson they’ll seek to carry into the Canes’ clash. The Australian side stifled the Crusaders with a game plan built around holding onto the ball and playing direct rugby, denying the defending champions the turnovers they love to turn into attack.

The Brumbies weren’t as disciplined in their shock loss to the Fijian Drua in Canberra last weekend, when they gave up 24 turnovers with a more expansive mindset.

“That just killed our continuity in the game,” Larkham said. “We know that if we can recycle the ball then we’re a very dangerous outfit, but it’s going to be that urgency to get to the breakdown as a priority this weekend.

“We’ve spoken about the fact that we have beaten the other New Zealand teams, and this could be quite a nice milestone for us. We’ve had success travelling to New Zealand over the last couple of years, and this would round out all the New Zealand teams in one year.

“We haven’t placed a lot of emphasis on that, but we know that’s something that we can celebrate after the game as well.”

The Brumbies sit fourth on the ladder, six points behind the top two teams, the Canes and Chiefs. A win over the Canes – who they beat in a Canberra play-off game last year – is important if they have any hope of hosting a final this season.

The fifth-placed Reds will play after the Brumbies on Saturday in Super Round, against the Blues. The Reds are also in form against New Zealand sides, having downed the Crusaders in Brisbane last weekend, and after also beating the Highlanders at home in round three.

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