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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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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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