Match Report: Crusaders v Highlanders Pre-Season 2
It was a story of old-school footy at Invercargill’s Rugby Park on Waitangi Day, with a 2:30pm kick-off drawing in a big Southland crowd. The Highlanders eventually emerged as narrow victors in a game full of cliches – a game of two halves, and “golden-oldies” scrums making an appearance in the last quarter.
Fresh off his 2024 All Blacks campaign, George Bell opened the scoring for the Crusaders in the 12th minute. However not long after, he took to the bench with a suspected lower leg injury. Ioane Moananu stepped in and was tireless in his 60-minute spell. Shortly Dallas McLeod followed Bell to the bench, to be replaced by Levi Aumua.
The Crusaders showed promising signs in the first half, and their expansive style of footy saw Sevu Reece and the returning Will Jordan getting involved early, with the latter bringing similar energy and flair Crusaders fans have come to expect from their fullback.
The precocious Taha Kemara controlled the game nicely and eventually banked a try of his own, ending his spell with 1 try and 2 conversions. A small defensive lapse saw Highlanders’ Jonah Nareki score off a pick and go, pulling it back to 10-14. However, the team capitalised on the Highlanders high penalty count in the first half with Reece dotting down on half time hooter to finish the half up 10-19.
The second half saw plenty of Crusaders’ changes, with new halfback Kyle Preston and the seemingly evergreen James O’Connor pairing up to steer the ship, showing promising early signs of their 9-10 combination. The Highlanders came out firing, with frenetic play translating into an early try by Sean Withy, making it 17-19.
Injuries once again forced some changes for the Crusaders, with front rower Kershawl Sykes-Martin going off early in the second half with another suspected lower limb injury. Fletcher Newell came back on, but was eventually replaced by back rower Johnny Lee, triggering golden oldie scrum rules for the remainder of the game.
The Highlanders pounced on some Crusaders errors, scoring 3 tries in the second half, extending their lead to 29-19. Despite the changes taking some time to settle for the Crusaders, Macca Springer dropped over the try line in the 76th minute, but O’Connor's conversion was unsuccessful, leaving the final score at 24-29.
Head Coach Rob Penney was happy to have a good contingent of All Blacks back for selection, saying, “it was good to give them a run to continue to build on some of our combinations”. Penney was also excited by the performances of Kemara and O’Connor.
The team takes lessons from their two preseason games and prop George Bower was positive coming out of yesterday’s game, saying, “the boys will take many good things out of this, as well as identify some areas we can grow heading into round 1.”
The team have a couple of days off, before building into their first game of the season, at home against the Hurricanes. Tickets are on sale now at www.crusasders.co.nz/tickets.