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Crusaders rest All Blacks, replace them with more All Blacks
By Jamie Wall
The demands of the recent Lions tour have forced the hand of the Crusaders coaching staff, who have rested a number of key players for their match tomorrow night against the Hurricanes in Wellington. This is despite the fact that a win will guarantee them top spot on the table going into the Super Rugby playoffs.
The All Black front row of Joe Moody, Codie Taylor and Owen Franks have been given the weekend off, and Sam Whitelock has been moved to the reserves bench.
However, that doesn't mean that you can lock in a night of set piece dominance by the home side. Fellow All Black Wyatt Crockett comes into the new front row alongside the highly rated Michael Alaalatoa and Ben Funnell. Behind them All Blacks Scott Barrett and Luke Romano are the starting locks.
Then there's the existing All Black contingent of Kieran Read and Matt Todd to add to the pack, plus Israel Dagg and Seta Tamanivalu out in the backs.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes have named a full strength line up, including 10 All Blacks of their own.
The last time these two teams played was a grinding, 20-12 victory to the Crusaders back in May:
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Latest Comments
Disagree.
The challenge for the All Blacks now that they have 7 of 8 starting forwards locked in and all but one bench forward (only one loose forward and bench loosie to settle on) is to sort out the starting backline as only 9 Roigard, 12 J. Barrett, 11 Clarke and 15 Jordan had good to outstanding seasons in 2024. All the other backs were inconsistent or poor and question marks going into 2025.
Go to commentshe should not be playing 12. He should be playing 10 and team managers should stop playing players out of position to accommodate libbok.
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