The Canterbury Crusaders claimed their seventh straight title with a 25-20 win over the Waikato Chiefs in the Super Rugby Pacific final at the FMG Stadium Waikato on Saturday.

Early in the second half, the Chiefs had a 20–15 lead, but the Crusaders came back. Codie Taylor scored a try that was converted, and Richie Mo’unga added a late penalty.

This was Robertson’s last game with the Crusaders. After the Rugby World Cup, which starts in September, he will leave to coach the All Blacks.

Since 2017, he has been in charge of the Christchurch-based team, which has won seven straight titles.

Sam Cane, co-captain of the Chiefs and captain of the All Blacks, was given a yellow card in the 72nd minute. This changed the course of the game.

From the resulting penalty, Test veteran Taylor was driven over for his 42nd career try. This made him the forward with the most tries in Super Rugby history.

With their home crowd cheering them on, the Chiefs’ best chance to win was when fly-half Damian McKenzie missed a long-range penalty shot.

Mo’unga finished off the scoring with a penalty kick after the final whistle. This made the Crusaders, who were missing seven injured All Blacks, cry.

Taylor, who scored two tries that night, said that the players wanted to win for Mo’unga and Sam Whitelock, who were leaving the team.

“I’m lost for words, just so proud of the effort,” Taylor told Sky Sport.

“I can’t get the fact out of my head that the boys are leaving and how much it means to them. It’s special. All the boys leaving really stood up tonight.

“Can’t take anything from the Chiefs, they threw everything at us. We just managed to hang in there.”

It was a heartbreaking loss for the Chiefs, who lost only one game during the regular season and looked like they had what it took to end a 10-year title drought.

All Blacks Brodie Retallick and Brad Weber, who have been with the Chiefs for a long time, were playing their last game before going overseas.

At halftime, the Crusaders were ahead 15–10, but they could have had a bigger lead because they had most of the ball and the Chiefs weren’t following the rules.

After All Blacks Anton Lienert-Brown and Luke Jacobson got yellow cards and Cane got sent off, the home team had to play with 14 players for two 10-minute periods.

Weber was sad about how unruly they were.

“It sucks, this crowd deserved to see us win tonight and jeez, if we had done it with 14 men for 30 minutes it would have been a hell of a story to tell,” he said.

“To come up just short… it’s devastating.”