Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe defending champions had made what was intended to be a temporary Apollo Projects Stadium home a fortress since the city’s deadly 2011 earthquake.<\/p>\n
But they relished the flashy upgrade in the five-tries-to-two triumph that was not without some nervous moments.<\/p>\n
Victory ensured the Crusaders avoided a clean sweep of losses to Australian sides for the first time in club history.<\/p>\n
And it improved the defending champions to 5-5 and equal on points with the fourth-placed ACT Brumbies, who play the top-ranked Hurricanes on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs (4-5) remain in seventh, two points behind the Queensland Reds (5-3), who have a game in hand and play the Blues in Saturday’s other fixture.<\/p>\n
After an emotional Crusaders haka completed a hyped pre-match build-up, the Waratahs took some air out of the occasion with back-to-back Sid Harvey penalties to lead 6-0.<\/p>\n
Winger Dallas McLeod, into the side after an ill Sevu Reece’s late scratching, scored his first to get the hosts rolling.<\/p>\n
Stout defence twice forced the Tahs sideways when they threatened to reply before an all-in scuffle led to a yellow card for Waratahs forward Miles Amatosero.<\/p>\n
McLeod had a second try waved away when replays showed an obstruction.<\/p>\n
The Waratahs held firm while a man down then struck back spectacularly with a full-field try that featured four kicks.<\/p>\n
Twice Jack Gordon sent it high from the ruck to be regathered, before Jack Debreczeni went right, then left with cross-field chips that produced a Harvey try.<\/p>\n
The Crusaders led at halftime though, Codie Taylor’s converted rolling maul try making it 14-13 at the break.<\/p>\n
Former Crusader Ioane Moananu was shown yellow minutes after entering the game and Leicester Fainga’anuku darted over to extend the lead.<\/p>\n
The Crusaders then spun the ball right with a flat cross-field kick before back-rower Dom Gardiner ran and threw a terrific outside pass to set up McLeod’s second.<\/p>\n
David Havili was the next man yellow-carded, for a shoulder to a falling Max Jorgensen’s forehead that forced the Waratahs fullback off.<\/p>\n
The visitors kept coming, Teddy Wilson wriggling out of a tackle to score and make it an eight-point game with 15 minutes to play.<\/p>\n
It only offered brief hope, Macca Springer straightening through a gap to shoot the hosts clear again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crusaders have avoided some unwanted history, brushing off the NSW Waratahs 35-20 in a winning start at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,29897,32951,760,85,48013],"class_list":{"0":"post-627787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-crusaders","11":"tag-nsw-waratahs","12":"tag-rugby","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-super-rugby-pacific"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627787","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=627787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}