Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Crusaders have won seven semi-finals on the bounce and are on a three-match win streak against the Chiefs, including a 43-33 victory in Hamilton earlier in the season.<\/p>\n
McKenzie admitted they would be “tough to beat” in his milestone match, but said the Chiefs were up to the task.<\/p>\n
“We\u00a0have been working\u00a0really hard\u00a0throughout the year to put ourselves into playoff contention and to play my 150th\u00a0against the Crusaders in the semi-final is special,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are extremely excited for this match and ready to rip in.\u00a0We\u00a0know what to expect\u00a0and we\u00a0know what we need to do to win.<\/p>\n
“In playoff rugby there are small margins and small moments you\u00a0have to\u00a0nail,” he added.<\/p>\n
“We know if we stay with what is true to\u00a0us,\u00a0it will put us in a good position.”<\/p>\n
The Luke Jacobson-led Chiefs named a largely settled side, with an injury to No.8 Wallace Sititi and centre Kyle Brown\u00a0suffering concussion forcing two changes.<\/p>\n
Lalakai Foketi will start at centre and Samipeni Finau comes into blindside\u00a0flanker\u00a0with Simon Parker moving to No.8.<\/p>\n
The Crusaders are boosted by the return of All Blacks prop Fletcher Newell from injury, slotting back into the front row alongside Codie Taylor and Finlay Brewis.<\/p>\n
“Fletch has played phenomenally for us, and we’re blessed to have him back this week.” said coach Rob Penney, who has elevated Braydon Ennor into the starting lineup at centre.<\/p>\n
“You need all your top weaponry available at this time of year, and his experience is going to be very valuable.<\/p>\n
“It will be hostile,” he added of playing in front of the Chiefs’ home crowd.<\/p>\n
“But\u00a0it’s\u00a0an awesome opportunity for us to go out there and put on\u00a0a good performance.\u00a0They’re\u00a0a quality side and the last times\u00a0we’ve\u00a0played them have been\u00a0really tough.”<\/p>\n
The table-topping Hurricanes host the Blues in the other semi-final on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks star Damian McKenzie says the Chiefs are pumped up and ready to “rip” into the Crusaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,5386,29897,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-728779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chiefs","tag-crusaders","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728779","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=728779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}