Earning a reputation as the “intercept king” during last year’s National Rugby Championships, Newsome plucked an intercept and raced away 60m to score the Western Force’s opening try in their 45-17 loss to the Crusaders.

With the Force trailing 14-3 and the Crusaders pressing, Newsome read the play perfectly.

Making the decision to come in as the Crusaders threatened to exploit an overlap, he picked off the pass and raced away to score and bring them back into the game.

In just his second appearance and run on debut, the 22-year-old was deemed a shining light for the Force and played the entire 80 minutes on the left wing.

Chance Peni scored right on half-time to keep the Force in the hunt at at 28-17 down at the break, and while they took the fight to the Crusaders in the second half, an inability to execute and turn dangerous positions into points allowed the New Zealanders to cruise home.

Stand-in skipper Jono Lance said the team is bitterly disappointed in their performance and determined to respond next week against the fifth-placed Blues in Auckland. 

“We know that we let ourselves down in the second half,” he said.

“We had the ball in attacking positions a lot in that second half and we just didn’t punish them.” 

“You can’t let a side like the Crusaders off the hook like that and they showed that. 

“We will go back and look at what went wrong and get ready for the Blues.”