Aisle be Back: Super Rugby underway this weekend

The pre-season crowd in Wainuiomata last Friday in their second pre-season match. 

• By Kevin McCarthy

Aisle be Back returns for another year of hard-hitting analysis and insight mixed with an often light-hearted take on all things Hurricanes and Super Rugby, and later in the year international rugby and the NPC.

Crusaders at home versus Hurricanes. Get the easy ones out of the way first, I say.

Tonight’s protagonists have both different, and similar backstories.

The Crusaders are trying to recapture their champion mojo after 2024’s train wreck of a season.

The Hurricanes of course want to take a very strong 2024 and go one further.

Injuries crippled the southerners last year, explaining some but not all their demise – certainly once the spiral of losses set in early, there was no way to get back.

The Hurricanes this year have one key position hammered with pre-season injury, first-five.

It’s no place for rookies to find their feet, as the Crusaders found.

But Harry Godfrey will get first crack. And the Crusaders are again showing faith in Taha Kemara at first five – backing the young man to bounce back from a rocky start to last season.

The battle up front may be the juicy part of the match – and decisive. So will Canes up and coming eight lay down a marker against an All Black heavy Crusaders pack.

Outside the opener, a lot of Hurricanes fans will of course be watching how it goes for Ardie Savea and the great man’s mission to lift Moana Pasifika. Big job, big shoulders.

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I was thinking late last year that I should write something about the missing opportunity for Super Rugby to have a fantasy game.

Lo, about a week later, I read that indeed, SRP was going to have a fantasy component – echoing the major success of such in football and basketball in keeping fans more interested.

For the uninitiated, you select a team from across the competition, and all its players, and score points based on how well they do in games.

And for those who remember the late 20th Century, you may recall that this is nothing new. The original fantasy game used archaic technology (a “newspaper”) with long lists of names (in”ink”). You from memory used a “cord telephone” to make changes to your line-up.

It appeared for example, if you live in Wellington, in the now extinct “Evening Post”. The winner overall won a car, which was worthwhile.

However, since there was only one car, your odds of winning it were slim. However, side leagues sprang up between and workmates, with some serious bragging rights and trash talking encouraged of course.

I used to vie for a trophy called The Mex. Another competitor (the last to hold the Mex) has sent a picture of it, dust and mould begrimed.

However, the Mex is back (you won’t find that name in the private leagues in the new system however) in 2025. I fully intend to add to my single trophy year, despite SRP Fantasy 2025 being much more convoluted in how it works out scoring. Literally, I think you may get points for whether a player remembers to wear a sponsor’s cap in post-match interviews.

Be that as it may, let the trash talk begin.

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And now we turn to a favourite category of Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should, which is running red hot, like much else in 2025.

Exhibit One is returning to coach a sliding Wales. Warren Gatland has now realised that wasn’t a crash hot plan.

Exhibit Two is the NZR who will try to get a sliding oil and chemical sponsor, INEOS, to honour the remainder of its sponsorship deal for the All Blacks.

Given that the boss of said company is picking fights over Manchester United, scuppering the UK’s America’s Cup effort, and generally losing money on oil production (how is that even possible?), the court action one fears will cost much more than will ever be recouped.

Sometimes you should stay on the moral high ground of being wronged and get out with what you have.

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The Hurricanes team to play the Crusaders is: 

Plus Billy Proctor – reported as a minor leg injury.