Fifteen years after the Christchurch earthquakes ended Lancaster Park's life as a top-flight venue, the Crusaders have a new permanent home – and they opened it in fitting style. Rob Penney's side beat the NSW Waratahs 35-20 in front of a sold-out 25,237 crowd at One NZ Stadium, also known by its Maori name Te Kaha, on Friday night.
The result was less interesting than the occasion. Dallas McLeod scored twice, hooker Codie Taylor crashed over from a rolling maul, Leicester Fainga'anuku muscled his way across the line in the second half, and Macca Springer sealed the result with a 40-metre breakaway in the final minutes. Sid Harvey and Teddy Wilson responded for the Waratahs, but the visitors were ultimately squeezed at the set piece and out-disciplined when it mattered.
The opening try was emblematic of what Crusaders fans had been waiting for. Halfback Noah Hotham's snipe from a quick ruck released McLeod into space inside 11 minutes, and the centre needed no second invitation to put the home side ahead. Taylor extended the lead just before half-time off a powerful rolling maul, and from there the Crusaders were rarely seriously threatened.
McLeod's second, from a Taha Kemara cross-field kick in the 56th minute, killed any lingering Waratahs hope of an upset. By full-time, the Crusaders had recorded their second win of the campaign and locked in their first home performance under the new stadium's distinctive permanent roof.
Skipper David Havili, who was sin-binned in the second half for a high shot and saw a try ruled out earlier in the contest for an obstruction call, summed up the Crusaders' performance bluntly as "scratchy". The captain's verdict reflected a side that did just enough rather than ran riot, but in a stadium debut on a damp Christchurch evening, the result was always going to matter more than the manner.
For Dan McKellar, watching his Waratahs come up short against the perennial Super Rugby benchmark, the post-match assessment mixed pride with frustration.
"It's a special occasion," McKellar said.
"Test match intensity was required and for large parts we achieved that. Discipline and set piece cost us. I'm proud of their fight and effort."
Discipline was, indeed, the core problem. The Waratahs gave away a string of penalties in their own half, allowing the Crusaders to play territory and feed Taylor's maul. When Havili was binned, the visitors found their way back into the contest through Wilson, but a late Springer sprint extinguished any hopes of stealing a result.
The bigger story, though, was the building. One NZ Stadium / Te Kaha replaces a string of temporary venues – the Christchurch Stadium tent, Apollo Projects Stadium and Orangetheory Stadium – that have hosted the Crusaders since the AMI Stadium / Lancaster Park collapse during the 2011 earthquake. The new ground, with a permanent roof, premium hospitality decks and an acoustic profile already drawing comparisons with Auckland's Eden Park, is being marketed as New Zealand's premium spectator experience. Demand backed it up: every ticket for the opening match was sold, with reports the venue could have been filled twice over.
For the Crusaders, the win means a clean slate at home and a reset of momentum after a Round 10 loss to Western Force in Perth that had wobbled their finals positioning. For Christchurch, after more than a decade of patched-together venues, it is a proper rugby home returned. As one of the city's senior reporters put it walking out of the stadium: warm, dry and noisy. For a city that has lived without all three for so long in its sporting life, that is no small thing.
