Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Coming to you from rugby's greatest fortress, New Zealand's national stadium, Eden Park, is the Aotearoa Rugby Park. Kia ora and welcome to another episode of Aotearoa Rugby Pod. The rugby on the weekend was superb, particularly that game down in Christchurch. David Haveli pulling through at the last minute. We'll talk a little bit about him.
David Haveli's performance had a massive impact on what's happening one through six as we head into the final round of Super Rugby and looking forward to the playoffs. We know who one and two are, the Hurricanes and the Chiefs. Who's going to come third through sixth? And if you've got a dark horse... Are you really going to want to play the Crusaders? Difficult team to face.
Later on this week, we'll get into the open side flankers. So keep an eye out for that content. Anton Cegna took out all of the prizes at the Blues Awards. So let's see how he sits. Will he be in all black in comparison to all these other open side flankers doing the rounds? We've also got Tony Johnson in this week. Of course, he commentated that game in Christchurch.
He's also the author of a new book on the Chiefs as well. And of course, if you want to catch
ARP you can do so at Aotearoa Rugby Pod official channels that's on YouTube as an audio pod across socials of course you can go to stuff.co.nz and get us there as well full stories shorts and the whole podcast and also on Rugby Pass you get those wonderful stats that we use each week as well as the chance to go and watch if you're in New Zealand the Japan League One Finals that'll feature Bryn Hall so with no further ado
TJ, welcome to the show.
You've done it before in the hosting capacity, but good to have you back. Oh, thanks for having me, guys.
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Chapter 2: How did David Havili's performance impact the All Blacks selection?
It's great to be here. I always enjoy the show, and it's nice to come and talk about some footy and maybe just get a word in for the book. In fact, I bought a copy of it along for you, and so you can give it away to one of your subscribers maybe or something like that, someone who follows you regularly. But yeah, thanks very much for having me.
Perfect. Well, let's get onto that now. Go leave a comment in the comment section, Chiefs and your favorite Chiefs player of all time. And you'll be in the draw to win this book here, the Chiefs book from Tony Johnson and Lynn as well.
Lynn McConnell. Yeah. So it's called He Piko He Taniwha, which means on every bend, a Chief, literally.
Chapter 3: What is the current status of the Super Rugby Pacific top six race?
And it goes back to the Waikato River. It's a legend of the Waikato and they adopted it as one of their catchphrases when they had this transformation at the Chiefs when Dave Rennie came in and they went on a bit of a journey of discovery. But the origins of the book was that Lynn and I had worked on a book that did pretty well about 10 years ago called Behind the Silver Fern.
And it was a story of the All Blacks in the words of the players.
Chapter 4: Which teams are likely to surge late in the Super Rugby season?
So we had to go back into archive material, diaries, old interviews, and get the words of the players to take us through the first 50 or 60 years. And then after that, we interviewed about 60 players, some very notable All Blacks, and we put it all together. And so this was the story of the All Blacks in their words, right up to, I think it was the 2019 World Cup in the end.
And Kent Currie, who's a real mover and shaker at the Chiefs organisation, they were setting up for their 30th anniversary something called the Ruakura Rugby Club, which is alumni based. It's for their old players, but it's also a connection with their fans.
It's set up at Ruakura, which is their training facility that they kind of built themselves out of an old abattoir and is now their headquarters. And to mark that, he had seen the Behind the Silver Fern book, which is still available, by the way. You can do it on Mighty Ape. But they wanted a book to mark it in the style of Behind the Silver Fern. And so he asked us to write this book.
We called it, as I say, He Piko He Taniwha. And we've interviewed over 60 players, some of the leading lights,
um of the chief story but also some of the people behind the scenes some of the lesser-known players who've still got some fantastic stories to tell and and there it is it's a limited edition so there's not many copies available most of them have gone to ex-players or members of the rugby club um so you you can actually get a copy of it if you go to the uh rfc.co.nz but there aren't many left so i thought i'd bring one along for you to uh to give away to a chief's fan
That's much appreciated. Brennan, you'd love to read a Chiefs book, wouldn't you? You can say it is love, the Chiefs.
We do, mate. We've had some great rivalries over the years. So TJ, good to have you in, mate. So yeah, it looks like it's going to be a great piece. So no doubt that lucky listener or lucky subscriber for us will be able to get a read of the Chiefs. But yeah, I'm not going to lie, mate. It might be a little bit hard for me to read, though, if I'm being completely honest.
The Crusaders do seem to have had the wood over the Chiefs when it really counted in recent years. But no, it's a terrific rivalry.
Well, that Crusaders-Chiefs game on the weekend, you were commentating that game, and it was an absolute ripper of a match.
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Chapter 5: What makes David Havili a key player for the Crusaders?
After seeing them step up in those last five, ten minutes, and admittedly, Brynna, I'd love your take on this. When the Chiefs took the three points, I was shouting for them to go to the corner. I just felt it was time to knock them out. It was time to go in there, either have field position or score points. And I felt like that allowed the Crusaders almost back into the game.
Hata, it's a great thing, isn't it? We can talk about it as analysts after a game. And it's quite funny, over here in Japan, there's been a few decisions in it around penalties and one team winning the game and then one team losing the game. So, look, to be honest, Ross, when I saw it, yes, I think you say that now. And I probably do agree at the time. I was like, this is a really good title.
If they do get a try here, I think it's going to be too hard for this Crusaders side for the rest of the game. But, you know, going out to eight points, you know, you've still got to score a try and a penalty. Like... I didn't think it shouldn't have been that big of a deal where it probably cost them the game. Now, after that decision from the penalty, that's where they probably lost the game.
The domino effects that fell post that. But yeah, I thought eight points, to be honest, I didn't think it was a bad decision in the end going out to two scores. They had to score two scores anyway for the Crusaders. There was just a couple of moments post that that the Crusaders were able to implement and execute under pressure to be able to give themselves to win.
I think the biggest thing from this Ross was that even from that 50-22, the Crusaders have a line out five meters out. They do an overthrow. And then from that, the Chiefs had the ability to be able to exit the ball, kick it long. kick it 60, 70 metres down the foot and the Crusaders have to attack. But they got a knock on and then from that, they end up scoring a try. Do you know what I mean?
So I actually just think if you are the Chiefs looking at themselves, post that decision, they were able to put the game away and the Crusaders were able to just do it a little bit better when the occasion came.
Nothing wrong with taking the three if you can secure the ball from the restart, have a good exit, take the play back into the opposition half. But somehow in these big games, that becomes quite a difficult thing to do sometimes. And I recall the moment you were talking about. I think they sensed they had a bit of an overlap of three-two.
But the percentage play absolutely would have been to hoof the ball downfield, get it out of the red zone, and make them come back. Back your defense. But as soon as you give them a set piece inside your danger zone, well, you're asking for trouble.
I think on the other foot, the Crusaders' line-up drive defence has been not up to its usual standards over the last little while. It was impenetrable for years. And Taoki Aho and the Chiefs were very good at that point. I was just sitting there as a Chiefs man going...
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Chapter 6: How do injuries affect the Crusaders' chances in the playoffs?
But I know the Chiefs, when they have Damian McKenzie, they've had some, I guess, some adjustments in their attack, being able to get the ball where they want to. But yeah, keep it simple. That's probably the best way to put it. And when teams do that very, very well, you're able to probably score points off that team. Who would have been your player of the week this week in Super Rugby?
Oh, gosh.
Yeah. Look, I think in the end that if you look at that, that the way players influence the outcome of an important game, I can't go past David Havili.
David Havili with the way that he was having an influence, like TJ said, in big moments, especially that second half. I do have to give a notable mention to Hutchinson from the Chiefs. He probably would have wanted to put a Crusaders jersey on growing up.
But the fact that he got to play down there and the way that he's been playing, I thought it has cover tackle early doors to be able to stop Noah Hotham. You know, showed great care for that group, for that team, especially in that game. And yeah, I just really like the way that he has been playing.
yeah but at the same time i had david hard billy i think a very well-timed performance going to the final series and um you know i know we have touched on billy proctor quinta pie and joey barrett for most of the year but it was a nice friendly reminder i guess for those selectors to see that he's still there and they're still here that has a lot to offer when they're all black jersey possibly
Braden Yossi was another name I mentioned. Just sort of going a little bit off topic here, but boy, you look at the impact for the Reds, how important it is for them at this time of year to have Tate McDermott back. I think he's been the best halfback in Australia for a while now.
That combination with Carter Gordon, okay, so things went off the rails a little bit for the Reds, but I don't think you can underestimate the impact that having him back on the field does for that team.
You're lucky Jib is not here. He would fight you over Jake Gordon being there.
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Chapter 7: What strategies are the Hurricanes using to maintain their form?
They'd have a powerful injury.
The scrum's been good.
Yeah, they have. But their forward force could have been even stronger. Lavanini hasn't really produced what I thought it might. He took a long time before he was ready to play and then he had an injury. what have you, they've still thrown up some really good talent. But yeah, disappointing season. I thought they might have had a big one.
And I think that a lot of things have conspired against that happening.
You kind of got that feeling with Jamie Joseph in the post-match when he was asked about it. There's a lot to go through, but he also had the All Blacks thing happening in the middle there. And that must have been, I would say that's hard to get your focus in and around all of that.
That all happened in a very short space of time. Those injuries and the whole thing about Jamie, who I think a lot of people thought was going to be the next All Black coach before we really knew who was in for the job. So yeah, it's just one of those years that it offered a lot and it just didn't come to fruition or didn't materialise for a number of reasons.
One guy in that team, I think, is just, we've talked about Casey before, Ethan DeGroote has been outstanding this year. He's led from the front. He's a proven international quality, world-class loosehead prop. And he couldn't have done more to help his team.
And I think he's a guy that's really, in a team that's had a bit of a battle on its hand, deserves a lot of credit for the way he's played, the example that he's set.
I think he got the sword for player of the year down there as well, just to go with it. But it is another year for the Highlanders, Brenner. And at some point, they've got to turn that around because it's been happening like this for a while.
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