PHIL GIFFORD
Last updated 19:30, April 9 2016
OPINION: What should we make of the Crusaders now?
Wins don't get much uglier than the way they scraped to a one-point victory in Perth against the Force.
Does this mean the Crusaders, after two wins on the road in South Africa, are paper tigers who, when they strike the Brumbies in a fortnight or the Highlanders next month, will be out of their depth?
Luke Romano of the Crusaders takes aim at the Western Force's Angus Cottrell in the 20-19 victory in Perth.
Hardly. We know now that the victories over the Sharks and the Lions were extraordinary performances.
There looked to be outrageous cheating by the Sharks. Their coach, Gary Gold, swore at and abused the television match official not once but twice. How he's got away with a piddling fine, and not a lengthy ban, is a reminder to me that in Super Rugby South Africa holds the power.
To paraphrase Donald Trump, Gold could apparently have shot somebody in the street and he still would have only been fined.
Yet despite the intimidation of the official in Durban, and the ineptitude of referee Jaco Peyper at Ellis Park in the game with the Lions, the Crusaders were so much better than the Sharks and the Lions that they still won.
(It's a disgraceful reflection of how much New Zealand has lost in the rejig of Super Rugby that the Chiefs won't play the Blues again in round-robin play. And let's not depress ourselves by going into too much detail over the fact that up to three crap South African sides will make the eight-team playoffs just by being the best in their enfeebled South African/Japan/Argentina sections).
So what the hell happened in Perth?
For a start let's give some credit to the Force. They're very limited, barely able to break the line in the backs, but, as the Highlanders found last weekend, they have tough forwards and a terrific goalkicker in Peter Grant.
Strike one against the Crusaders was that while Richie Mo'unga has become a cool, efficient first-five, his goal kicking remains erratic. He was great at Ellis Park, bad in Perth.
Strike two was that long after it became clear the flypaper hands that worked so well in South Africa had vanished, there were still attempts to work miracle balls as the Force clawed their way back into the game.
There was no strike three and out because one of the few bright spots was the Crusaders didn't dog it. They still believed they could win when commonsense said it wasn't their night.
They won 20-19 in the most unimaginative way, by smashing into the Force from a lineout, until Jordan Taufua, who is a now as vital as the host of All Blacks he joins in the pack, got the try.
Good on them. If they're to be the serious contenders they can be this year, there'll be other times when the mundane, not flash, is needed.
And amongst the groan-inducing turnovers and dropped passes in Perth, there were signs again of just how potent the pack is.
It barely seemed possible that Luke Romano could bristle with any more aggression then he did in Africa, but in Perth he did, while Matt Todd's tackling remains as clinically accurate and effective as a surgeon's scalpel.
When you can sub Wyatt Crockett with Joe Moody, there's depth as well. There's more to winning than having good forwards, but it's a terrific start.
As someone who can honestly say he predicted on radio a close game when the Chiefs played the Blues, I was still a little startled at how well the Blues played in Hamilton.
Damian McKenzie remains a brilliant prospect, but he was completely outplayed by Melani Nanai, whose solo try was a thing of real beauty.
And the best loose forward in the game was Akira Ioane, whose ability to step out of tackles was astonishing. If he's this powerful at 20, how strong will he be in a couple of years?
The Chiefs, on the other hand, showed how dangerous they are by refusing to lose confidence when it would have been reasonable to do so.
- Sunday Star Times
