Rob Penney concedes Crusaders missing playoffs 'could easily happen'

There's no rest for the wicked and no respite from the Crusaders' gruelling schedule, next up being a date with the Chiefs that could see the reigning champions fall to their sixth straight loss and further cement their standing at the bottom of the Super Rugby Pacific table.

Needless to say, that's quite the falloff for a team with seven titles in as many years. But, traces of that championship DNA still linger in the background and give opponents pause before anticipating an easy win. Should the team recover to make the playoffs, it could make for quite the quarter-final matchup.

A playoff birth is a dream that is slowly fading though, as a loss this weekend would send the team into the season's halfway point without a win to their name.

"That could easily happen if they're not well connected, if the group start looking out the window instead of in the mirror," Crusaders coach Rob Penney said following his side's loss to the Blues, as reported by Newshub. "That's collective, that's all of us.

"It could spiral uncontrollably, but my hope is in the fact the group is well connected and they're proud men. We've got some talent to come back to us after the bye.

"Who knows, if we can secure a position in the top eight, we're in the hunt."

That bye is just a week away and comes ahead of a run against four Australian sides. With names like Scott Barrett, Tamaiti Williams, Ethan Blackadder, Codie Taylor and Fergus Burke in line to make a potential return during that stretch.

Any momentum the squad can generate ahead of those players returning could well aid a resurgence later in the season, but kickstarting that winning streak against a side like the Chiefs is easier said than done.

"That will be a challenge," Penney conceded. "It's getting to a point where that's obviously going to start to affect all sorts of dynamics within a team, when you have results we've been having.

"It's a collective responsibility to ensure we don't fall into a deep hole, and we just keep looking for light at the end of the tunnel and grasp onto it, and just keep fighting."

A major component of Saturday's 26-6 loss to the Blues was a stark lack of line-out execution, an area the Crusaders have traditionally led the competition in. But, for Penney, it's just one of the many problems to solve.

"You can't fix everything. You've just got to pick the critical few and hopefully, they make a big enough impact that we can get a result.

"We thought we had some good line-outs to go to, but they got up in front of us, put us under pressure and we threw them a bit wonky. There are a number of reasons, and we have to be better and better educators.

"It was a combination of things, never just one thing. One percent might have been a little bit of dampness... a combination between having a 22-year-old caller and a 20-year-old front-of-the-lineout guy and 22-year-old thrower.

"We've got to be better at educating them and developing them, but there are some reasons why it imploded."