Tana Umaga: There's more where historic Crusaders scalp came from

Moana Pasifika have produced their best performance under second-year head coach Tana Uamaga, says the former All Black himself, in their statement win over the Crusaders in Christchurch.

Not many picked the last-placed side to topple the traditional heavyweights; in fact, only three per cent of people in Super Rugby Pacific’s tipping comp had Moana as favourites, while the betting odds had Moana paying $6.50.

Ardie Savea’s men had other ideas, however, and the visitors struck early thanks to the leg drive of their inspirational captain. The Crusaders would equalize minutes later but that would be as close as the hosts would get to a lead in the contest.

Savea finished with two tries to his name, joined by Miracle Faiilagi, Patrick Pellegrini, Danny Toala and Pepesana Patafilo in the scorers’ column for Moana Pasifika.

The win was labelled “very special” by Umaga following the final whistle.

“I suppose any win’s a special win. But when you come down here to Christchurch and you play against the team that’s obviously formidable at home, and you know that they’re one of the form teams. Yeah, it is very special to do that,” he told Jason Pine on Newstalk ZB.

“So, very proud of the group and the ones that came down here, but also the ones at home that help us prepare for what was our best performance of the year.”

It was a historic night for Moana, who didn’t just claim their first victory over the Crusaders but also claimed the largest opponent scoreline in Christchurch this century.

The 45-point haul also leaves the team with the same points differential as the sixth-placed Force, showing how competitive they’ve been this season. The Achilles heel of Umaga’s side has been their ability to put in 80-minute performances.

“We’ve been good in patches, as we’ve seen,” the coach acknowledged. “We don’t want to get too far in front of ourselves here, there’s obviously still things to work on. But no, this is probably our best performance since I’ve been here, and we’ve got more in us. We know we have to have more on us because we can’t just rely on this one game.

“But we enjoyed our performance and our win last night, and now we’re already (looking ahead), as you do in this competition, you can’t keep thinking about what’s in the past. You’ve got to move forward, and we need to do that now.”

Key to the consistency of performance on Saturday night was the marriage of what Savea called the team’s “poly flair”, defensive effort and some more tactically astute game management. Umaga said that marrying the two has been his goal from the outset of his involvement with the team.

“Look, and that’s the thing. We know we can play the game, we know we’re exciting to watch, and traditionally that’s in us, but we also know with the coaching group and the playing group and the leadership that we have, that we can’t just rely on that to win games.

“We want to be more than just a team that everyone loves watching and a highlight-reel team. We want to be a team that is consistent and can put out performances that people are proud of, not losing sight of who we are and what we can do.

“We know we’ve got that, but we want to show exactly what you talked about around our work creating those effort areas and also you know, the detail around what good teams do to win games, and I think you know you saw a bit of that last night, and it’s great to hear people talk around our work cred not just the flair that we naturally bring to games.”

Umaga said the team have had what it takes, both tactically and talent-wise, to put in a performance like that for some time now.

“We’ve had that blueprint for a while. Putting that plan in place, adhering to the plan, trusting the plan.

“For us, it’s combining the emotion we have and all that energy that we want to do well and understanding that we do this for a bigger purpose than just ourselves as a group.

“But we’ve got to channel that energy somewhere and channel it in a way that we’re all doing it, all doing it for the same reason.

“As we say, we’re singing off the same hymn sheet because we know when we do that, when we channel that energy in the right places at the right times and as a collective, then we know we can get more results like we did last night.”

Points Flow Chart

Moana Pasifika win +16

Time in lead

0

Mins in lead

70

0%

% Of Game In Lead

88%

55%

Possession Last 10 min

45%

7

Points Last 10 min

0

Perhaps the biggest challenge of the game for the team name soon after halftime, when the Crusaders struck back with two quick tries to bring the game back within nine points. So far this season, Moana have been susceptible to opponent scoring outbursts, but this time was different.

Umaga credited his captain for helping keep the team’s belief high while the team as a whole showed their growth to strike back and regain a firm hold on the game.

“Oh, those are the big moments for us. That was a huge moment for us, and talking to skip, Ardie, he said those are the moments that the boys stood up.

“Again, it’s about uniting us around what we were going to go to next, and that’s something that we’ve worked on, especially from the last game, is that coming together in those moments and understanding that we know what to do, have faith, a trust the plan. Just go back to doing what we were doing and not lose faith in that.

“I think that was probably a turning point for us and a big part of our growth, especially from last week. It was swinging that momentum because it was turned against us when we had it all, and obviously, we know what it feels like when we let that momentum keep going and give that to the opposition teams.

“But again, our leaders stepped up. The players understood that we’ve been ever before, but now we want to change this. Full credit to them.”