Moody makes major move at mate’s expense
Joe Moody gives France’s Bernard le Roux the fend. Photo: Joe Moody’s whirlwind World Cup call up could be about to turn into a hurricane.
Less than a week after arriving in Wales as an injury replacement the Canterbury loosehead prop put in an eye-catching performance off the bench during the All Blacks’ 62-13 quarterfinal win over France in Cardiff.
Now with starting No 1 and Crusaders teammate Wyatt Crockett leaving the field in the 28th minute with a groin injury, Moody could suddenly be in line to start next Sunday (NZ time) in the semifinal against South Africa at Twickenham.
Not even those closest and dearest to Moody saw that coming and his family had already cancelled plans to travel to the tournament.
‘‘My family had booked tickets to come over, but when I didn’t make the initial squad they cancelled all their tickets, so nah there isn’t anyone over here at the moment,’’ the 27-year-old said after the quarterfinal.
‘‘They’re all watching at home. I haven’t spoken to anyone yet, but I just checked my phone and I’ve got quite a few messages there.’’
Moody couldn’t stop smiling after a night at Millennium Stadium that saw himself and fellow replacement prop Charlie Faumuina play more like backs at times than front rowers.
One of the match highlights came when Moody charged down field, then as he took the tackle he flipped a backhanded pass to put replacement halfback Tawera Kerr-Barlow over for his second try.
‘‘It was a highlight for me I guess. Some of the boys have said it was straight out of the Sonny Bill [Williams] playbook,’’ Moody said.
‘‘It was just on instinct and it happened pretty fast. I’m just glad I pulled it off.’’
He hadn’t expected to be subbed on after less than half an hour, but his real shock was that when he trotted out for a lineout there had still not been a single scrum during the test.
‘‘It was definitely different because we’d prepared ourselves for a big battle with the French at scrum time. I don’t know if we had more than half a dozen odd scrums in the whole match.’’
There were seven scrums by fulltime, but the first didn’t come until the 33rd minute, meaning Crockett, didn’t pack down once.