{"id":288193,"date":"2023-04-21T13:25:28","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T13:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=288193"},"modified":"2023-04-21T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T13:59:00","slug":"mealamu-2-0-crusaders-unearth-new-superman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=288193","title":{"rendered":"'Mealamu 2.0': Crusaders unearth new Superman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The champion Crusaders unearthed a new gem to break Rebels hearts late in the Melbourne night for a 43-27\ufeff Super Rugby Pacific win at AAMI Park on Saturday.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rebels led by 12 points at halftime and were still on track for an almighty upset when they held a slender 27-26 advantage with just 10 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

Enter an unlikely Crusaders hero in young bench hooker Ioane Moananu, who was summoned across the Tasman as a late replacement for Codie Taylor.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific and Super W seasons on the home of rugby, Stan Sport.<\/strong><\/em> All matches streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Crusaders<\/p>\n

With "live in the moment" written on his wrist tape, Moananu showed rare strength to shrug off the tackle attempts of Rebels forwards Josh Kemeny and Josh Canham and score the go-ahead try.<\/p>\n

Moananu then channelled Superman by pretending to rip his jersey open in celebration.<\/p>\n

"Ioane, wow, he's \ufeffcome from nowhere. Keven Mealamu 2.0," Crusaders coach Scott Robertson told Stan Sport, comparing Moananu to the nuggety All Blacks great.<\/p>\n

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\"Keven<\/p>\n

"Yesterday morning (Friday), he flew over a day later (than the rest of the team) so he was here just before captain's run yesterday. Look he nailed it, didn't he?<\/p>\n

"Just his footwork and his power, he's like a little Sevu Reece in the forward pack for us."<\/p>\n

Moananu's happiness was infectious as he explained his celebration.<\/p>\n

\"Ioane<\/p>\n

\ufeff"Just made it up on the spot," Moananu told Stan Sport's Sera Naiqama.<\/p>\n

"I saw Superman, one of the people in the crowd in a Superman costume and just did it. It looked good, it looked good on TV.\ufeff It just comes in the moment and just got to do it."<\/p>\n

Moananu said he was preparing for a good night's sleep when he got the call-up.<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST: Sean Maloney and Stephen Hoiles revel in Ben O'Donnell's breakout game for the Brumbies and Force flyer Zach Kibirige's try of the year contender<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/between-two-posts-1\/cult-heroes-wallabies-squad-changes\/embed?style=Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

"They got me on like a 3 o'clock flight in the morning from New Zealand \ufeffso I had to get back on the books and learn the lineout as quick as possible. It went pretty well."<\/p>\n

The Rebels scored three first half tries to Brad Wilkin, Vaiolini Ekuasi and Ryan Louwrens but were unable to go on with the job.<\/p>\n

\ufeffIt was a similar story to their previous home match against the Blues, when they also led at halftime before fading in a 54-17 loss.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1649372726665293827?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

"Score first and then you can get a little bit of momentum," Robertson said of the halftime message.<\/p>\n

"And we knew history showed the Rebels, in that second half, get a little bit stuck in the mud. We just wanted to hold ball, build pressure and finish and we did.<\/p>\n

"It happens sometimes, you know the the quality of your bench, the experience of your bench and sometimes you get a couple of injuries in critical areas, you know, all of a sudden it can fall off," Robertson said of the second half Rebels woes.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1649369280230850562?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

"I don't want to go too deep into it. We were behind you know, they were good for a long period of time. But \ufeffsomething that we'll have to address."<\/p>\n

The win\ufeff lifted the Crusaders (6-2) to third on the ladder while the Rebels are 10th with a 2-6 record.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders have a mouthwatering date with the unbeaten\ufeff Chiefs next weekend while the Rebels take on winless Moana Pasifika.<\/p>\n

\"Leilani<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the NSW Waratahs locked up top spot heading into the Super W semifinals by beating the Rebels 29-0 at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n

The Waratahs are 5-0 while the Rebels finish their season with a 0-5 record.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"It's never easy down here, t\ufeffhey are a solid opposition. I feel like we left some points out there but a win's a win," Waratahs star Naiqama said on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The champion Crusaders unearthed a new gem to break Rebels hearts late in the Melbourne night for a 43-27\ufeff Super Rugby Pacific win at AAMI […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":288195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=288193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288200,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288193\/revisions\/288200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/288195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}