by Brendan Bradford –

Alofa Leaves the Door Open –

Carrying a golf club in one hand and his winners’ mug in the other, Alofa Alofa emerged from the Waratahs’ sheds after an hour of raucous celebration. The golf club was a personalised gift Michael Cheika made to each of his players and the emotion of the win, and his coach’s gesture, was evident on the West Harbour speedster’s face.

“I’m just grateful and humbled and I never thought I’d be here,” said Alofa, who is leaving for a two year deal in France, but left the door open for a possible return to Moore Park.

“It’s emotional for me but I’m looking forward to the future and I love these guys with all my heart. Hopefully they can do it next year and God willing things will go well and I’ll be back here in two years playing with the Blue Blood.”

Although the 23-year-old is officially a Super Rugby winner, he still spoke about some of his teammates and Crusaders opposition with awe.

“I was just honoured and privileged to play alongside guys like Cliffy, Tatafu and Israel – I looked up to him when I was growing up and to play alongside him is unreal,” he said.

“And to play against Dan Carter and McCaw, I’ll take that into the memory bank for a while. I used to play 10 at Under-17 level and I always wanted to be like Dan Carter, so to actually play against him was amazing.”

Go well in France, Bread. Hope to see you back at the Tahs in two years.

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No, Sir –

Funny game, rugby. Along with boxing, it’s one sport where five different people can watch the same thing and have five different opinions. The ref was terrible, great, Nemani was out, Richie wasn’t offside. And on and on and on. For what it’s worth, The Rugby Shorts reckons Craig Joubert had a pretty good game. He let enough go to allow the match to flow but didn’t hold back from punishing obvious foul play.

I will admit one thing though: I don’t know a damn thing about scrums.

Feels good to get that off my chest.

You should try it. Because deep down, no matter how much you gesture and yell or talk about shoulder height, you don’t know anything either – members of the Front Rower’s Union aside. Although, Sekope Kepu had a long talk to Joubert after a couple of contentious decisions in the second half. Maybe front-rowers don’t know as much as we thought either. Or the refs are just making it up too.

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The Individuals and the Moments –

You saw exactly what it meant to Sekope Kepu when he was subbed off in the second half. He walked slowly – proper slowly – to the sideline, then just stood there and watched on for a couple of minutes. He didn’t want to leave the pitch. And who can blame him.

If Adam Ashley-Cooper isn’t in the top three of your list of favourite rugby players, you need your head checked. The bloke scored twice, caught about every kick-off, made some match-defining tackles and finally, finally won himself a grand-final.

Swoop won Man-of-the-Match honours, but a host of others were hot on his heels. In the old days, before the fans chose it via text message, MoM was awarded on a 3-2-1 voting basis. For what it’s worth, The Rugby Shorts had it like this:

3 points – Michael Hooper: There’s daylight between Hooper and the next best openside in the world at the moment, especially now McCaw’s switched to six. The stand-in Tahs captain was full of running, hit everything that moved and led the side brilliantly on Saturday night.

2 points – Adam Ashley-Cooper: See above. All class.

1 point – Wycliff Palu: The big No. 8 is having his best season in years and was everywhere for almost 80-minutes. Palu went off for a concussion test but was at his damaging best for most of the night. Cliffy was involved in five of the 10 phases in the lead-up to Ashley-Cooper’s second try. This included three cleanouts, an offload and two carries – one of which pushed the defence back and allowed Bernard Foley to make half a line break just before the try.

Pretty tough to narrow it down to three players, so give Foley and Nick Phipps a few points each, throw in a couple for Kieran Read and a few more for Sam Whitelock too.

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All Class –

There was so much class on display during and after the match on Saturday. From Kieran Read finding Craig Joubert to thank him for the match, to Michael Cheika congratulating every Crusaders player with a handshake and Nathan Grey taking his cap off when receiving his award on stage.

To quote several Tahs players post-match: how good.

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Champagne-less Champagne rugby –

The Tahs played the type of champagne rugby that draws over 60,000 people to ANZ Stadium on a chilly winter night and had big bottles of the competition sponsor’s product to celebrate with the trophy. But, the cider didn’t do the same job as your more traditional champagne (https://vine.co/v/M9BWhJ3x36M) – no matter how much they shook the bottles. We reckon Will Skelton had the best solution, just throw the stuff out of the bottle.

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Spare a Thought –

There’s no underestimating the influence Dave Dennis still has on this team and it was a nice touch to have him on-stage hoisting the trophy with Michael Hooper. Since a knee injury ended his season, Dennis has showed up to training every day to make the side breakfast and in Hooper’s words, “when a guy does something like that, you know you’ve got someone special.”

Spare a thought for the Waratahs squad members who are backing up for the Shute Shield finals on Sunday. Halfback Matt Lucas is running around in second-grade for Manly while Jed Holloway and Ben Volavola are playing for Southern Districts against Hugh Roach and Eastwood. Tough gig, that.