It took the Crusaders 14 years to move back into a proper home, and even one of Super Rugby's most unsentimental podcasts could not pretend the occasion was ordinary. Two Cents Rugby's live stream of the Crusaders' 35-20 win over the Waratahs at their new Christchurch stadium captured the moment with the kind of reluctant warmth only long-time rivals can muster.
"Super Rugby, Crusaders. They got a new stadium. Boom. They do. They opened it," one host said. "They opened it with a victory over the Waratahs 35-20."
The return to a purpose-built home stirred even the critics. "How good is it to finally see the Crusaders in a stadium which fits the status of a club like the Crusaders?" the host said. "It's fantastic and I felt myself being particularly nostalgic about the whole thing."
There was a long personal dig at the scaffolded interim venue the club had lived in since the Canterbury earthquakes. "Orange Theory — it's the only sponsor I can think of. It had so many different names. But it was a scaffolding. It was the rugby-league stadium that was never meant to support more than a couple of thousand people, and they've been there for over a decade, for 14 years. Quite incredible."
The payoff was unusually candid from a self-identifying anti-Crusaders voice. "To see a decked-out proper international stadium, sold out, decked out in red and black — it was a real beautiful thing. I can't stand the Crusaders but I was really happy to see it. This was the only time since the quakes I've rooted for them."
The match itself followed the script of the last 20 years of Crusaders home matches. Waratahs fly-half Sid Harvey opened the scoring with two early penalties, before Crusaders wing Dallas McLeod grabbed the first try — a moment the podcast already expects to be a pub-quiz question. "Who scored the first points at the new Tick Stadium? First six points? Sid Harvey. Two kicks to get it going. But he did not score the first try. That came through the Crusaders. Your man Dallas McLeod."
The contest was spiky early. Waratahs lock Sergio Buselini — the pundits described him as "a big nasty boy" — was yellow-carded and did not return from a head-injury assessment. Crusaders playmaker Kyle Hall also saw yellow for a high shot that the hosts felt could have been red. "He was quite upright, there wasn't a huge amount of arms than tackle, and it was direct contact to the head," the analyst said. "In the words of Jamie Joseph: what is a red card?"
Where the Waratahs cost themselves the game, the pundits agreed, was in the air. "I think the scrum was winning penalties. The 'Tahs couldn't win their own lineout. That was really what lost the game," one said. "They won 66% of their possession, but at every moment where it looked crucial — attacking lineouts, defensive lineouts — they lost them. It was a real Achilles heel."
The man-of-the-match performance came from the Crusaders' dual-code convert Faleniu Fakatava, playing loose forward and occasionally in midfield. The comparison the hosts reached for was high praise. "High praise — Michael Jones," one said. "Michael Jones was like the first back-like loose forward. Still very early days, but glimpses. Very early days glimpses."
They were careful not to oversell him. "We don't want to overstate how good he looked, but certainly for his first start in that position, he looked all right."
The host balanced the occasion against a cooler long-term read. "I still don't think this Crusaders team is a championship squad. I still don't think they have the quality out there," he said, before adding an unusual caveat for a self-declared neutral. "But it was a lovely night. It was great to see the stadium in Christchurch. And if there's any team that's going to make me eat my own face in shame, it's the Crusaders."
The stadium hosts two more Super Round matches across the weekend. On Friday night in Christchurch, the Crusaders delivered exactly the kind of moment Super Rugby Pacific needed to remind its audience what the competition felt like before scaffolds and lockdowns. Whether the team is actually good enough to cash it in come finals is, for once, the second question.
