{"id":509538,"date":"2026-02-28T10:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509538\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T10:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:52:12","slug":"kemara-comes-of-age-chiefs-in-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509538\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemara comes of age, Chiefs in shock"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Crusaders<\/a> produced a massive turnaround to beat title favourite Chiefs<\/a> 43-33 in a thriller in Hamilton, registering their first win of the season.<\/p>\n

A close range hat-trick to No.8 Christian Lio-Willie<\/a> powered the Crusaders to the lead, with a world class performance from Will Jordan<\/a> also pivotal.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders managed to grind down the Chiefs at the breakdown and slow down their attack, ending up on top in a high-scoring affair.<\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

Watch now<\/a><\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

Here are the takes from the Crusaders first win of the season.<\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

Watch now<\/a><\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

Chiefs bitter shock in Hamilton<\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

Watch now<\/a><\/p>\n

\"VideoStephen Larkham the new All Blacks assistant coach?! | RP<\/p>\n

The KOKO Show boys, all former teammates of Wallaby great Stephen Larkham, aren\u2019t pleased with this new rumour. Watch the full show on RugbyPass TV now. <\/p>\n

The Chiefs will be wondering what the hell just happened in Hamilton? After 10 minutes they were up 14-0 and Etene Nanai-Seturo<\/a> had just scored the team try of the season from over 100 metres out. Hamilton was rocking. They were up 21-7 after 20 minutes and seemingly in cruise control. Perhaps they started too fast, with too much time left on the clock.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders scored 34 unanswered points from the 25th minute to led by 36-21 with 20 minutes to play. First it was hometown product Noah Hotham<\/a> scoring on an inside support line after a Will Jordan set-piece bust to give the Crusaders hope. Then Christian Lio-Willie levelled the scores right before half, only for another Hamilton Boys product Taha Kemara<\/a>, to sink a penalty goal on half-time to take the lead 24-21.<\/p>\n

The second half was when the Crusaders really clicked into gear, playing with more physicality and lifting to pick apart the Chiefs from set-piece plays. By the time Hotham was yellow carded in the 70th minute, the damage was done, nullifying a stronger Chiefs bench. In front of a bumper crowd at FMG Stadium the Chiefs melted down to their number one nemesis.<\/p>\n

Crusaders resolve proved the difference<\/p>\n

A week after the worse home loss in their history, the Crusaders looked rusty early. They fell behind 14-0 but momentum is a funny thing. They were able to get fast strikes to get back ahead on the scoreboard. A big scrum move on halfway proved the catalyst, a Will Jordan break led to a try to Hotham. Although the Crusaders weren\u2019t perfect, ultimately they had far more accuracy and resolve in most areas in their game.<\/p>\n

There was a desperation present that wasn\u2019t there last week. Even in the dying stages, the Crusaders forced a maul knock-on on their line, and then David Havili<\/a> stripped Emoni Narawa<\/a> under the posts as he was crashing over. On the final play of the game, an incredible Will Jordan try saving tackle on Leroy Carter<\/a> prevented a bonus point try.<\/p>\n

All of those small moments of grit proved to matter in the 10-point win, and it was in typical Crusader fashion.<\/p>\n

Taha Kemara the architect\u00a0<\/p>\n

This game was the coming of age for Crusaders first five Taha Kemara, the Hamilton Boys product returning to deliver a special comeback. The 22-year-old delivered his best Super Rugby performance piloting the Crusaders backline, with his accurate pass deliver the timing on some of the big plays on the night. A beautiful long ball put Will Jordan through for a line break in the second half, which after an offload and keeping the ball alive, led to Havili diving over in the corner.<\/p>\n

The back breaker came from running it out of the Crusaders\u2019 own 22, with Kemara combining with Chay Fihaki<\/a> to slice the Chiefs down the blindside. It was a magical chip and regather by Fihaki, with Kemara setting up the wing and backing up inside to continue the break. While he couldn\u2019t find a return ball to Fihaki, Lio-Willie bagged his hat-trick a phase later from only five metres out.<\/p>\n

Off the tee Kemara was incredible, landing a bunch of wide goals that proved key in mounting a massive comeback. Every point counts when you are down 21-7.<\/p>\n

He dared the defence all night with his running game, taking 12 carries for 76 metres which is a lot for a No.10. This showed he has found his confidence at this level.<\/p>\n

This will be a sweet win for Kemara, who struggled initially at Super Rugby level, thrust into it too soon. Rivez Reihana<\/a> led the team to the championship last year, and now Kemara has returned with more command in his game.<\/p>\n

Josh Lord becoming Retallick 2.0<\/p>\n

The All Black lock has always been a big man with big potential, but it feels like he is taking his game to a new level in 2026. We saw his elevated play last week when he combined with Tupou Vaa\u2019i<\/a> for a massive line break in Dunedin, using one hand to manipulate the defence and pop an offload over the top after eating up huge metres following his line break.<\/p>\n

The same skill was on show when the Chiefs broke out from their own goal line, with Lord getting involved in the passage and finding an assist for Etene Nanai-Seturo following some sublime touches from more than one Chief.<\/p>\n

If Lord can continue this type of form, he can become the next version of Retallick. He\u2019s showing the type of attacking game that will make Lord a different player on the international stage.<\/p>\n

All Black standard the difference<\/p>\n

If you were going to pinpoint the two Crusaders who made the most difference, it would be the pair of All Blacks<\/a> Lio-Willie and Will Jordan. Even though Lio-Willie\u2019s hat-trick was all power pick and goes from rather close, he finished with a huge work rate topping the tackle count with 14 and the carry count with 16. He got through a mountain of work.<\/p>\n

Will Jordan also made the big plays that mattered, with three line breaks and involvement in two tries. His last ditch tackle on Leroy Carter<\/a>, while not meaningful in terms of the result, was an all-time try saver. Carter was looking good to score a worldie before Jordan took it away from him.<\/p>\n

Those two deserve a special mention in the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crusaders produced a massive turnaround to beat title favourite Chiefs 43-33 in a thriller in Hamilton, registering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-509538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}