The 2023 Super Rugby Pacific finalists have been decided, with the Chiefs to host the Crusaders in a competition decider that pits the two best teams of the season against one another.
The weekend's semifinals certainly stayed true to the tournament's playoff history, too, with the Brumbies unable to break Australia's collective duck in finals games in New Zealand. The Blues, meanwhile, discovered that, yes, some things are just not possible - and beating the Crusaders in Christchurch in the postseason might just be one of them.
Read on as we review some of the Super - And Not So Super - action from the weekend.
SUPER
RUTHLESS CRUSADERS CRUSH BLUES
Who said the Crusaders were vulnerable? We may have been so bold to suggest so, but we were rightly made to look like fools when the kings of Super Rugby blew the Blues off the paddock in Christchurch on Friday.
The Crusaders' 52-15 thrashing of their rivals from the north will go down as one of the great playoff wins, not just because of the fact they did it while missing a swathe of frontline All Blacks, but more so the bludgeoning brilliance of its nature.
As one classic Nick Cummins' quote goes, the Blues were like the boy who fell out of the tree - they were just never in it.
Right from the outset the Crusaders' defence engulfed the Blues from the outside in, the umbrella-like, rush approach ensuring the visitors' dangerous outside backs did not see any ball. Their big forwards, meanwhile, were rattled in tight as they attempted tip-on passes in heavy traffic that either hit the deck or were well behind their intended recipient, resulting in a mistake.
Then, when the hosts got down inside the Blues' 22, they struck almost immediately, with Braydon Ennor and Leicester Fainga'anuku both crossing inside 12 minutes. On both occasions, Blues and All Blacks winger Mark Telea was badly exposed in defence, but such was the momentum that the Crusaders had built through the middle of the park that the flyer could not solely be blamed for the opening two tries.
When Will Jordan crossed five minutes before halftime the game was as good as done, and Codie Taylor's strike on the stoke of the siren erased any thought of an historic Blues comeback.
The Blues had conceded 30 points in 40 minutes and had been made to look like a park rugby team in the process.
A further two tries and 22 points followed after the break, the visitors simply having no answer for the relentless red-and-black wave that kept crashing down on top of them.
Without All Blacks Sam Whitelock, David Havili, Joe Moody, Ethan Blackadder, Sevu Reece, and several other wounded workhorses, the Crusaders really had to call on the out reaches of their extended squad. But such is the culture in Christchurch, that the next man up simply steps in and does the job.
"Squads win championships, we haven't focused on who we haven't got," Crusaders coach Scott Robertson said in response to his side's lengthy injury ward.
"It's a real mindset thing I've driven, and made sure the next person is ready and taken that opportunity. Sometimes these guys train for weeks without having an opportunity... fifty points in a semifinal, against a team that's pretty hot. A lot of All Blacks, it's right up there. It could have been a hell of a finish to my tenure, that's why probably the anxiety was there."
While Robertson now has the chance to end his incomparable tenure as Crusaders coach on the ultimate note, his Blues counterpart, and future All Blacks assistant coach, Leon MacDonald, bowed out in the ugliest of fashions.
The 37-point defeat only adding to the pain of the loss to the same opposition in last year's final.
MCKENZIE MAGIC KILLS OF BRAVE BRUMBIES
While the first semifinal was almost over before it begun, the weekend's second contest was as keenly fought as you could have hoped for on a wet night in Hamilton.
In the end it was the Chiefs who consolidated their first place-finish from the regular season into a home final, Clayton McMillan's side running out 19-6 winners to book a date with the Crusaders back at FMG Waikato Stadium on Saturday.
But it wasn't until the closing 10 minutes that the hosts began to wrestle the ascendancy, first through a 50-metre penalty star fly-half Damian McKenzie stroked through the posts and then with a scything midfield break from the same player once again.
Taking the ball in the pocket two passes wide of the previous ruck, McKenzie ran into a yawning gap between tiring Brumbies defenders Tom Hooper and Rob Valetini and into the 22, before passing to an unmarked Shaun Stevenson. While the fullback was quickly tackled, McKenzie double around for the offload - one he snatched from Anton Lienert-Brown who probably would have scored - and the play moved back towards the posts, where All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick dived over to rubber-stamp the result.
McKenzie has been in brilliant form all season and now gets the opportunity to go head-to-head with Richie Mo'unga in the decider, a match that may well prove a final audition for the All Blacks No. 10 jersey.
But as good as McKenzie's play was, the Chiefs' victory was built on another resolute defensive effort that never showed signs of breaching. The hosts made 133 of 142 tackles at 92% efficiency, and also repelled the Brumbies' dangerous driving maul.
NOT SO SUPER
WRIGHT BUCKLES UNDER SEMIFINAL PRESSURE
The Brumbies were always going to be up against it in Hamilton, but still Stephen Larkham's team took the fight right up to the Chiefs on Saturday night.
The visitors had a number of excellent contributors, none more so than Rob Valetini who made 15 runs for 39 metres, and added 18 tackles in a performance that underlined his status as one of Eddie Jones' key Wallabies.
But while Valetini sparkled on a dreary night in the Waikato, Wallabies counterpart Tom Wright had an evening he'd rather forget at fullback.
Seemingly in a two-horse race to wear the Wallabies No. 15 jersey with Andrew Kellaway, Wright looked to be rattled by the pressure in Hamilton as he made a series of questionable decisions.
The first was a grubber kick in behind the Chiefs defensive line when the Brumbies were building phases nicely inside the red zone, one that was easily fielded in-goal. Then, late in the first half, he attempted a quick goal-line dropout in search of the touchline to bring up halftime, only for Chiefs winger Emoni Narawa to scoop it up and charge back at the line.
While the Brumbies were able to repel that final attack right on halftime, Wright's decision put his side under immense pressure; it was 50/50 play that would have been a huge relief had it come off, but was one instead that backfired and a decision that his teammates were seemingly unaware of.
Wright's unhappy night flowed into the second half as he continued to struggle with his passing - one ridiculous forward pass almost defying logic - but perhaps more concerning for Jones was the fact that he looked incredibly indecisive almost every time he fielded a Chiefs kick deep inside his own half.
It remains to be seen how harshly Jones will judge that one performance, and perhaps Wright's larger body of work from the rest of the season, much of which was very good, will count for more.
But there is no doubt that the pressure of the occasion and the slippery conditions worried Wright and revived some bad habits he looked to have kicked earlier in the year.