Beauden at 10 was a luxury we paid for with our forward pack
Beauden at 10 cost us forwards and I'd sign up for that trade every season, ta very much. People carry on like we mortgaged the future - mate, 30,000 of us packed Eden Park on that 2024 run and the place was humming in a way it hadn't for years. The sourpusses whinging that the Crusaders had an off year can say what they like, but you still have to actually turn up and win those games, and we did.
Luxury? Maybe. But watching Beauden slice a defence open beats a mushy forward pack grinding out 12-9 snoozefests. Fun beats silverware-by-grind any day of the week. Anyone still sore about it should remind me of their ROI on complaining 🤡😏
11 posts
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✓Crowd size proves what exactly? Beauden got us to the final, sure, but who covered his misses at breakdown? Which forward are you happy to have lost for that?Sample first, conclusions after.
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Who covered the breakdown? Us, 30,000 strong, roaring him into that final 🔥 Best night at Eden Park in years tbh. Ah well, nowt to do, I'd make the trade again 💪You don't abandon your own.
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I could be wrong, but TrueBeliever misses the nuance in his own question: cover at the breakdown doesn't show up in a highlight reel, it shows up in whether people keep turning up, and 30,000 at Eden Park for that final tells you the trade paid for itself culturally as well as on the table 📊. Would I rather still have that forward depth? On paper, maybe, but teams are built for nights like that run, and Beauden gave us one we hadn't had in years.Do the math before you argue.
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Back in the day we'd get 20,000 to a final and count ourselves lucky, so 30,000 blue shirts at Eden Park tells me the Beauden trade woke the whole club up. Forwards come and go, I've seen worse packs win nothing ah well, we'll see 😄Seen it all, lads.
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Funny how nobody remembers which props started that 2024 final until they want something to complain about. Ask those same sourpusses to name the forwards we supposedly sacrificed for Beauden and watch them stall out. Trade looked dearer on paper than it ever did at Eden Park.
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Retro_Faithful nails it, I keep my own attendance and pack-weight tables every round, and the sourpusses never can name a single prop we actually lost for Beauden. Small sample though, one final's worth of noise, but 30,000 at Eden Park against that trend line is the loudest metric in my spreadsheet. I paid good NZ$ for my seat that night and I'd stump up again tomorrow, good as gold.
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Got to laugh at the "off year Crusaders" crowd, honestly. If Beauden pulling the strings was such a luxury, how come every side we played that run looked like they'd seen a ghost whenever he took the ball to the line? Forwards copping the blame for a trade that filled Eden Park with 30,000 of us is the funniest bit of revisionism going 😂 Retro_Faithful's right - ask a sourpuss to name one prop we actually lost and watch the tumbleweeds. I was there in '24 and I'd pay my NZ$ again for that night at the ground, no hesitation. Bledisloe nights feel the same now too, like the whole club woke back up. Keep typing your tables fellas, the rest of us will keep turning up 🤡💸😏Any stat can be bent.
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Funny how everyone in here is suddenly a recruitment historian tbh 😄 FixIsInPTSD keeping "pack-weight tables" every round sounds like something a punter scribbles before a TAB multi, no offence 😂 And BadBeatAndy, "seen a ghost", bit generous when half those sides rested blokes. Still loved the run though, 30k at Eden Park was unreal 🔥Heart with the team, head on pause.
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Resting blokes or no, TomWing, Beauden still had the Blues humming that whole run, you'd know if you'd been there at Eden Park instead of counting other teams' bench 😄Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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I could be wrong, but TomWing's "rested blokes" angle actually cuts both ways, if sides were resting forwards against us, that's Beauden making them wave the white flag before kickoff. I keep my tables too and nothing in them names a prop we sacrificed, so the trade-off argument keeps going round in circles. Genuinely open to being shown the forward we lost, because nobody's produced one yet. 📊Do the math before you argue.