'That's not us': Razor defends Crusaders' cynical play in red zone against Blues
Crusaders head coach Scott Robertson has defended his side's approach to defending in the red zone after his side came away with a 34-28 win over the Blues at Eden Park.
The Crusaders aggressive defence came up with big plays but pushed the boundaries at the breakdown to spoil the Blues' ball and were penalised frequently for infringing in the red zone while on defence.
After a spate of penalties early in the second half captain Scott Barrett was warned when Codie Taylor was pinged for not releasing the tackled player but no yellow came from repeated infringements.
Eventually Kershawl Sykes-Martin was yellow carded in the 65th minute for 'keeping his hands on the ball the whole time', which Sky Sport commentator Tony Johnson described as 'riding their luck big time' before the referee finally had enough.
Robertson shared his philosophy to the ruck defence during his post-game comments, saying he wants the ball to come to his players not the other way around.
"The ball comes to you, you don't go to the ball," he said of the Crusaders ruck defence philosophy.
"If you start overplaying... it's got to be clear and obvious, it's not 'I'm looking for it'.
"Be patient, be clean, obviously we got the yellow on the ground for holding in there, and that's not us."
The Crusaders defence's never say die attitude produced two major try-saving efforts, dislodging the ball on two occasions for James Tucker and Hoskins Sotutu.
All Black lock Sam Whitelock produced a pivotal steal at the ruck with a minute remaining while during the final Blues possession they were held up off for a collapsed maul turnover.
Robertson put the defensive plays down to effort but assessed his side as "poor" in the second half as they could not execute the game plan they had devised.
"I just think there are fine margins, they were just effort clips, Richie getting back [on Sotutu], Macca Springer getting back.
"Three or four tries that were tries just because of a little moment. We were quite poor in the second half.
"Everything we talked about, we didn't do, but we were great in the first half.
"It just shows how fine the margins are."
The Crusaders head coach praised the Blues ability to keep ball in hand which prevented the visitors from implementing their plan.
"We wanted to make them make 200 tackles, they made us make 300. It swung back massively," he said.
"When they get a ball carrier and roll on, they can roll you backwards. It was like league a little bit, isn't it?"
On how the side was able to bounce back from the shock loss to the Drua in Fiji last week, Robertson said he lifted his team by focusing the side on the effort plays they were making.
The message was that the side 'wasn't far away' after an experimental side fell short to the Fijian Drua.
"We just kept showing the effort stuff. What we were good at and doing really well, and what we needed to tidy up.
"Just a couple of get betters. We just talked 'we are that far away'.
"We rolled [the dice] last week with the squad, didn't quite get there. We catch a kick-off, we win that game.
"There was only a couple of moments against the Chiefs really, that went bang-bang. So we were that close.
"We wanted to perform today and get back on it."
Although the Crusaders brought back a number of big names for the Blues clash, their depth has been tested this season.
They were dealt a blow with the news that All Black prop Fletcher Newell will miss the season while David Havili joined Jack Goodhue on the sidelines.
In Havili's place, young midfielder Dallas McLeod started in the 12 jersey and was exceptional in the 34-28 win.
"We've got 12 guys injured that will be really proud. We did a lot for a lot of them," Robertson said.
"We've gone deep already, a lot of them will come back but we just want to turn our attention to each game.
"Look at Dallas McLeod. How good was he? Big uce, he was amazing."
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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