Razor laments horror start
Scott Robertson had all but conceded defeat after 20 minutes.
The Crusaders coach is unaccustomed to seeing things go badly for the team. And falling 21-0 down to the Hurricanes, at Westpac Stadium, would’ve been bad enough.
But when Robertson lost skipper Sam Whitelock and vice-captain Ryan Crotty to head knocks as well, then it quickly appeared as if this was a Super Rugby game that would definitely get away from the Crusaders.
They’re not the defending champs for nothing, though. Before long 21-0 was 26-19 and Robertson’s lot looked poised to go on and win. In the end that crazy opening quarter just took too much out of them and 29-19 was the final score.
‘‘After the start we got and the bounce of the ball and the high catches and the little chip chicks and [referee Brendon Pickerill] not going upstairs after that [first] try and not having a look to see if he’d knocked it on,’’ Robertson said.
‘‘Then you start to think ‘wow, there’s a bit of momentum for the Hurricanes’ and you start drifting off and thinking ‘how many points are they going to score here? Beaudy’s [Beauden Barrett] putting on a show’ and then the group shows a bit of solidarity and tightens up and goes back to our strengths and goes back to our strengths and had five, six, maybe seven opportunities to get within three points of them and didn’t take one of them.’’
Robertson felt the fourth-minute Hurricanes lineout, that prop Chris Eves ended up scoring from, might have featured a knock on. Pickerill didn’t and we played on.
Crotty had suffered a head clash in backplay and Whitelock similar. He staggered back into the defensive line but was eventually spotted by the match doctor and followed Crotty down the tunnel for an HIA.
Robertson said the pair were both fine post-match but the immediate impact was that, with first five-eighth Richie Mo’unga absent with a broken jaw, the Crusaders were pretty much out of their usual game drivers.
‘‘A bit of calmness under pressure went as well and it meant we had no substitutes at the end of the game, so all those things compounded. In saying that, we still had a chance,’’ said Robertson.
That had looked unlikely after an opening quarter in which the Hurricanes played some lovely stuff, to lay on tries for Eves, TJ Perenara, Ben Lam and Matt Proctor. Beauden and Jordie Barrett were prominent, with Brad Shields and Ardie Savea shining as well.
But, as Robertson said, the Crusaders ground their way back into proceedings.
Manasa Mataele went over then Jordan Taufua scored a great forward’s try, on the stroke of halftime. By the time prop Michael Alaalatoa drove over in the 55th minute, a terrific comeback seemed on the cards.
That the Hurricanes hung on, particularly on the back of trips to Africa and Argentina, was meritorious.
The fact they put the result to bed with a rare penalty goal, from Jordie Barrett, was significant too.
They really wanted that win and were satisfied, but hardly crowing, afterwards.
‘‘I was keen for Jordie to kick that goal to get us out past seven [points ahead]. Once we had a buffer of 10, we could just hang on enough to force them into an error,’’ Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said.
A bit of calmness under pressure went as well. Scott Robertson