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'That's not us': Razor defends Crusaders' cynical play in red zone against Blues

Willi Heinz and Richie Mo'unga of the Crusaders celebrate after winning the round four Super Rugby Pacific match between Blues and Crusaders at Eden Park, on March 18, 2023, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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“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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AllyOz 21 minutes ago
Has Quade Cooper solved a Lions riddle for Australia?

Quade has a lot of very supportive fans, and also, in Australia (and definitely in NZ), there are those that do not like him as a player. I do think his coaches were responsible for him not getting a run when he was at his peak, Cheika didn’t appear to be a fan, giving him only one pool game in the World Cup (or very few chances anyway) but I think Quade also must have had issues in fitting in with coaches (or certain types of coaches). I also think there was a long period of his career where he played injured and was off his best. And he sat out a full season of SR to play club rugby rather than leave Queensland, when he fell out of favour with Thorn. He didn’t seem to settle in at Toulon, or the Melbourne Rebels really either and then he went to Kintetsu where he was in a team that was either bottom of the top grade or top of the next grade down, where, I imagine, it is difficult to get a feel of a players value to the national team. There are two (or more) sides to everyone of those stories.


I was in the group that probably was never a fan. I can’t really say why. When I look back on his highlight reel, there were moments of sheer brilliance and he took the Reds to a Championship win against the Crusader. But I guess I always viewed him as high risk and I am not sure that, prior to 2021, we ever saw his best. We had Foley as a long term 10 under Cheika, and also Matt Toomua and Christian Leilafano. Quade Cooper was easily the most skilful of any of those, but whether or not his own judgement or his ability/willingness to follow the coaches/teams plan was ever at the level of some of those other players, I am not sure. In some way I see him as a Finn Russell type, who doesn’t always appear to get along with some coaches but I am not sure it is always the coaches fault. I think Quade had the confidence that, if he thought he was right he would not be deterred from following that and I imagine some coaches (and not just bad ones) struggle with that if they are seeing different pictures from where they are watching.


I think he makes some good points. I really don’t understand the reluctance to pick James O’Connor and I think he makes a good point about changing coaches. I agree that there is a sameness to each of the 10s we have at the moment.


However, if we are talking about the last decade, we did have Michael Cheika as the coach from late 2014 to 2019 - so that is half the decade. Since then we have had 3 coaches in 6 years.


I do understand the charge about having lost our playing identity and I think he is right that we have perhaps fallen for the trick of trying to jump on the latest trend or copying what has been successful elsewhere and hoping that it works for us. But I am not sure how he personally would go as a coach. I see a bit of a similarity to Gregor Townsend personality wise but that is just a guess - Gregor has done OK.


I hope Quade doesn’t become the David Campese of his generation and getting involved in coaching might be a way to avoid that. It is interesting that he has written these articles in the Australian as they have been a bit anti-Rugby in Australia after they missed out on the broadcast rights.

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