{"id":161404,"date":"2025-11-30T16:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/161404\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T16:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:35:10","slug":"rob-penney-lists-eight-crusaders-players-to-watch-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/161404\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Penney lists eight Crusaders players to watch in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a poor 2024 season in Super Rugby Pacific, Rob Penney and the Crusaders<\/a> bounced back the only way they know how, beating the Chiefs<\/a> in the final of the 2025 competition to win another title.<\/p>\n

Now, with a new stadium on the horizon in Christchurch, Penney\u2019s side will be looking to continue their momentum into the new season starting in February.<\/p>\n

This week, all of the Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> franchises started their pre-season, without their international stars who will be on an extended break until after Christmas.<\/p>\n

But for Crusaders fans, who might be looking towards the next generation of athletes in the red and black jersey, Penney lists some of the exciting talents they have at their club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m loath to do it because it\u2019s such a team game, so I would say there\u2019s a string of players we\u2019ve already mentioned, Macca Springer<\/a> on the on the wing, Chay Fihaki<\/a>, who\u2019s really emerged as a quality footballer, and someone that\u2019s destined for a black jersey at some point,\u201d Penney told Millsy and Guy on\u00a0Sport Nation. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s a group, like Liam Jack<\/a>, Oli Mathis<\/a>, Johnny Lee<\/a>, I guess, people that aren\u2019t so well renowned yet, but will soon become household names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a group there that we\u2019re very excited about, and Taha Kemara<\/a>, Aki Tuivailala<\/a> and Xavier Saifoloi<\/a> as well. The emergence of some of those names will come to the fore, over the next 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penney, who says he\u2019s enjoyed watching the NPC in the off-season, is ready to kick off another season as head coach of the Crusaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a pretty hectic, cold day. We\u2019ve had a lot of meetings with the new blokes. Obviously the New Zealand<\/a> 15 and All Blacks<\/a> aren\u2019t in yet and they won\u2019t be until after Christmas, but we\u2019ve had a great day, and looking forward to a bit more activity tomorrow,\u201d Penney told Sport Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart applying the trade, is what we\u2019re doing and we\u2019ve had a really incredible off season, really. There\u2019s been some great discussions on how we can build and the players have been heavily engaged in where we\u2019re going. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting now to be able to sort of implement a few of those things and see how it all involved in a practical sense over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about what elements he took from the disappointing campaign in 2024, the 61-year-old head coach admits that there\u2019s multiple things that they just didn\u2019t get right in that specific campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always elements of the game that, we want to challenge the best players in the world, which we do have in some positions, to be better, and for the players that are emerging, we want to make them international class.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t think you repeat back on 2024, there\u2019s a number of small things that we didn\u2019t get right and that didn\u2019t go for us. But I think learning the whole group from the on field leadership connections to ensuring that you can play your best for you when you need to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a poor 2024 season in Super Rugby Pacific, Rob Penney and the Crusaders bounced back the only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-161404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}