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Crusaders anticipating 'a little bit of controversy' in Chiefs grudge match

(Photo by Michael Bradley/Getty Images)

The Crusaders have, over the years, dominated the Super Rugby competition, securing 12 titles throughout the competition’s 26-year history and managing a 70 per cent win-record throughout that period.

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In the early years, the Blues were the Crusaders’ biggest rivals thanks to the sheer number of All Blacks boasted by the two franchises coupled with decades worth of history between the Auckland and Canterbury provincial sides.

In recent times, however, that rivalry has grown rather one-sided, with the Crusaders going undefeated against the Blues since 2014, chalking up 15 victories along the way.

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Instead, it’s the men just south of the Blues who have taken up the mantle as the Crusaders’ fiercest foes, with the Chiefs causing plenty of frustrations for the men from Christchurch over the past decade.

In 2012 and 2013, buoyed on by ‘Chiefs Mana’ and some breakdown napalm instilled by new coach Dave Rennie, the Chiefs bested the Crusaders in back-to-back semi-finals in Hamilton en route to their two Super Rugby titles.

 

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More recently, the Chiefs managed four wins on the trot against the Crusaders in 2014 and 2015, and scored at least one victory each season from 2019 until 2021. At present, the Chiefs hold Super Rugby’s best success rate over the Crusaders – even if it does sit at only 40 per cent.

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Throw in last year’s Super Rugby Aotearoa final – won by the Crusaders – and you have a fierce contest brewing ahead of Saturday’s game in Chritchurch.

“The boys have done a lot of homework for this game, which we have to,” Crusaders coach Scott Robertson said this week. “The Chiefs-Crusaders rivalry is as strong as ever.

“It’s tough, they’re close games, they always have a little bit of controversy or tight moments that you’ve gotta win to get the result. Hence the final last year is still pretty fresh in our minds and I’m sure it’s in theirs as well.”

Last year’s two games in Christchurch certainly didn’t lack for controversy, as alluded to by Robertson. In the first game between the two sides, the Crusaders were awarded a penalty try and Brad Weber was sent to the sin-bin after a clear knock-on from Richie Mo’unga, while both Codie Taylor and Sevu Reece were probably lucky to escape red cards in the Super Rugby Aotearoa final for dangerous tackles.

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It’s the earlier seasons, when Rennie was involved, that many Crusaders remember the most, however.

“2012, 2013 seasons when Rens came in and created that sort of different edge – ‘Chiefs Mana’ – and they started to live by that mantra, the Crusaders couldn’t keep up with it,” Robertson said. “We got beaten in a couple of semi-finals and over the years it’s sort of been riddled with close matches along the way and [the Crusaders] felt like they’d sort of walked off the field and been beaten up. And the Chiefs had done a great job, they beat the Crusaders.

“We’re honest, we’re open about it. We know when we walk off the field if we’ve [been] beaten because we haven’t fronted up and that’s why the games are so great because we’ve probably brought our own edge to it so it’s a balance between both teams going at it. We both play great quality free-flowing footy as well, we’ve got some highly skilled athletes. So I think that’s where it’s stemmed from.”

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Crusaders centurion Sam Whitelock echoed Robertson’s take on the rivalry.

“The Chiefs and Crusaders have an unbelievable history over the last 26 years Super Rugby’s been played,” he said. “I think if you look at it, it’s so competitive because no one team’s had dominance over the whole time. Crusaders have had it in the past, Chiefs have had it in the past.

“It just shows you can’t take anything for granted and this week’s exactly that. We haven’t played each other for a little bit and it’s going to be awesome to get out there.”

Whitelock made his debut for the Crusaders in 2010 and enjoyed three straight successes against the Chiefs before the 2012 season arrived. While the Chiefs have always been tough opposition, like every New Zealand franchise, Whitelock confirmed that the aggressive edge the Hamiltonians brought to the breakdown when Rennie came on board was what differentiated them from other high-calibre sides.

“Obviously, they were very successful in that little window there, I think it was 12 and 13, they won the comp two years in a row,” Whitelock said. “Every time I’ve played the Chiefs, whether it was in 2010 or last year, it’s always competitive. It’s always hard and it’s always physical – and that’s just not a Chiefs thing, that’s a New Zealand thing. We love to play against out neighbours or people we know really well within our country.

“But in saying that, [the breakdown aggression] was their strength, that’s what they were good at, that’s what separated them from the rest of the competition. It’s something that they’ve held onto for a while and they’re really good at so that’s something that we’ve gotta make sure we’re prepared for but at the same time, we’ve got to expect them to do something different.

“Teams are smart enough to change the way they’re playing, to attacking your weaknesses, and all week they’ve been sitting up there in Hamilton looking at how we play and they’ll be trying to find our weaknesses and they’ll be trying to exploit it.”

The Crusaders will host the Chiefs at Orangetheory Stadium in Christchurch on Saturday evening at 7:05pm NZT.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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