Looks like the tricks he pulled off was well worth the $$$ by Crusaders 9 Noah Hotham who loves taking on individual challenges that blew everyone away while playing a crucial role with his forwards following their qualifying Final win last night & now they’re semi-finals bound.
Then you got someone clearing those decks on the second row with superior attacking and defensive ground in team captain Scott Barrett and being in sync with a group Crusaders re-built over time is paramount towards playing Finals Footy in the hope of winning trophies again.
Last but not least, tough pill to swallow going into a tough game like this and Reds can’t go any further than the 1st week Finals. But Reds is proud to have someone who used to play in Canterbury had stood out on the blindside six on its own – Joe Brial. He’s a defensive tackler, aggressive basher & all of the above; he’s got the Lions to take on soon also for Reds and gotta say, it’s perfect timing – bring it on.
All in all, Crusaders too good on what has been an A-Game performance over Queensland once again at their own stomping ground in Christchurch by 32-12.
Lots of fireworks being launched by the next group of players including experienced ones, who took a great stand for the sake of the Crusaders DNA, as coach Rob Penney will be delighted with that going into next week’s semi depending on this evening’s results.
Aside from the Reds or even any other Australian Super Rugby side that can just turn up there for an extra week of Rugby, there’s always the Brumbies you can count on who always make the semis but still short of the Grand Final over the last few years. They will have the Hurricanes to face off with later tonight in Canberra.
Will this be a dead rubber or not should the Blues defeat the Chiefs also tonight?
If Blues win, either Brumbies or Hurricanes will be the last to get out of a must-win situation, with Chiefs getting that “lucky loser” berth since they came home 1st.
Sure Australia might have been encouraged with the early season progress where no NZ team have won here over the first 10-11 weeks having gone from five teams to four after the Rebels were axed due to financial reasons.
However, then things have largely remained the same downhill since then.
That’s 1-2 things Rugby Australia will have to look in the second half of 2025.
