The small fracture in Bell's foot is going to keep him out for the whole Super Rugby Pacific campaign, giving more opportunities to Moananu and New Zealand U20 player Manumaua Letiu.
The Crusaders have made minor changes to the team that beat the Hurricanes in round one ahead of their trip to Hamilton to face the Chiefs in round two.
Crusaders head coach Rob Penney has revealed the extent of the injury that kept All Blacks hooker George Bell out of the Super Rugby Pacific season opener on Friday night.
The Crusaders are out for redemption after dropping out of the Super Rugby Pacific title fold entirely in 2024. And a new, shortened finals format hasn't made that job any easier for the former champions.
It's semi-finals Sunday at the World Rugby U20 Championship and following last Tuesday’s weather-affected schedule, the hope will be that all six matches will be played to an 80-minute conclusion unlike on match day three when there were just four and a half matches completed due to the heavy rain making pitches unplayable.
Knowing they effectively had a ‘gimme’ versus minnows Spain on match day three, they rested numerous first-choice players but they will now run out at the DHL Stadium with a team that has 10 alterations from last Tuesday in Stellenbosch.
Three matches are scheduled for Athlone: Ireland-Australia (2pm local time), France-Wales (4:30pm) and South Africa-England (7pm). Over in Stellenbosch, it’s Argentina-Fiji (2pm), Georgia-Italy (4:30pm) and New Zealand-Spain (7pm).
The Baby Blacks place-kicker had his frustrations during his team’s ding-dong match with France, the defending champions.
The Baby Blacks trailed 0-11 at the break following an opening period where they were heavily penalised on the penalty count, culminating in a yellow card for Andrew Smith.
Three matches are scheduled for Stellenbosch: Ireland vs Georgia (kick-off 2pm local), France vs New Zealand (4:30pm) and South Africa vs Argentina (7pm). Over in Athlone, Wales vs Spain is the opening match (2pm) followed by England vs Fiji (4:30pm) and Australia vs Italy (7pm).